Episode 17 - September Whales

There is often something special about September whales. Mid-August through mid-October is a favorite time to view whales in the Salish Sea, typically with an abundance of orcas, humpback whales and many days of beautiful fall lighting. Sara and Jeff begin this episode by sharing some highlights of this year's September whales, including a humpback playing with logs, humpbacks lunge feeding in krill blooms, and the many matrilines of Bigg's killer whales that have been in the area. 

The episode continues to highlight some of the many killer whale encounters and a recap of this year's After the Breach Podcast Photo Workshop. Over the two days of the workshop, in addition to humpback whales, we encountered a total of 48 individual Bigg's killer whales. We saw a total of 32 orcas each day in various groups. We talk about the memorable ending of day one, with a group or orcas nicknamed "Jack's summer camp," (an interesting split in matrilines we started talking about in episode 16) in epic late afternoon September lighting. We also talk about a very rare encounter with the T028As, a family that has not been documented since 2021, and the 109A2s, a family that has an 18 year old mom with 4 young kids!

The episode includes a section we almost forgot, meet the matriline, where we discuss the T36s. T36 is the mom of T36A and T36B, and also the presumed mom of T99 and T137. This makes her her responsible for 19 whales, including grandkids and her first great grandkid. 

We have dates for our 2024 After the Breach Podcast Photo Workshop! Saturday August 24th and Sunday August 25th, 2024. You can sign up for both days or just one day. Email us or you can find details here.  

On this episode we also discuss a bit about our 2025 Silver Bank week-long charter, which will be February 15-22, 2025. Stay tuned for more details. 

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Photos from this episode:

Humpback whale, "Stitch," playing with logs. Photo by Jeff Friedman, Maya's Legacy Whale Watching

 

Lunge feeding humpback whale. Photo by Jeff Friedman, Maya's Legacy Whale Watching

 

Krill bloom at the surface. Photo by Jeff Friedman, Maya's Legacy Whale Watching

 

End of day of the After the Breach Photo Workshop. Photo by Jeff Friedman, Maya's Legacy Whale Watching