Arriving early into the hotspot around 9:45, we were fortunate enough to find the orcas straight off the bat! A familiar dorsal was spotted and identified seeing El Notcho travelling with another 3 of his female family members.
We travelled with this pod yesterday and they were very much going about the same business today, quite slow and elusive in their surfaces.
The entire 6 of the pod soon united and passed in front of the boat in a line formation, allowing for our first real good look at these apex predators.
Without any other blows being spotted in the vicinity, we were left to Cookie and her pod for the first half of our charter.
A sunfish was spotted at the surface swimming along, oscillating their dorsal and anal fin which is their method to propel them forward. Often when a sunfish or mola mola is swimming at the surface, their dorsal fin gets mistaken for a dorsal of a shark. They lack the caudal or tail fin that most fish have so these guys slowly cruise around as their top and bottom fins scull to push and pull themselves forward against the water.
Just before 1 o clock, a large bird swirl was spotted not too far from the hotspot and just as we decided to check it out, two large dorsals with an entourage of other blows rose from the bird aggregation. Tattys pod, consisting of 17 family members, including two of the new calves for the season were enjoying the sunshine and not in any evident rush to be anywhere.
The two calves, Marley belonging to Missy and another unnamed youngster belonging to Miro were frolicking through the swell, watching them roll about and play in the rolling wave faces.
Another sunfish was briefly spotted at the bow as these two passed it nearby but didn’t make too much of an interaction, potentially unsure what to make of these strange bony fish. They were super friendly and came up to the front of the bow on a few occasions whilst the rest of the family sat back and remained unbothered, disinterested in spending a bit of playtime with the boat.
Spending the next hour and a half with this large and lively group, blows were spotted just east of the hotspot about 800m away, then seeing two large splashes on the surface.
Boosting over against the swell to where we saw this white water, a fresh large oil slick painted the surface spreading for at least 100 metres, picking up the distinct aroma of mammal oil. A symphony of blows puffed in all directions, identifying individuals from Splittip and Fue’s pod.
It can be common to see more than one pod within a predation event, often if a prey item is too difficult or large for one pod to take on, reinforcements can be called in as backup and all members from the involved pods share the food once they’ve been successful.
Socialising between members across pods, seeing Meeka and Fue from one pod travelling along with Bindi and a few juveniles from the other pod, was a lovely observation made as they all came in alongside the vessel.
A few playful surges through the tops of the waves as well as an amazing pass by the back of the vessel saw us out for the end of the charter – lucky enough to have encountered 4 different pods, two sunfish, the back end of a predation and social behaviours on this beautiful sunny day!
-Naturaliste Charters
This post was adapted from a Facebook post, read the original here.
Photos taken by Sara Hysong-Shimazu. Blog written by Marine Biologist Jade Cantrall.
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