Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a time every year I take a moment to remember the Southern Resident killer whales we've lost over the previous 12 months. You can find all my previous Day of the Dead tributes here. I believe it's so important to remember their stories, as they all, both in life and in death, fuel our fight for a brighter future for this unique population of whales.  L41 Mega Every loss is sad, but some hit me harder than others, and L41 was one of those harder ones. I think it's in large part because he was such an iconic whale for me from the very beginning ..read more

With 2020 in no way shaping up as planned, with two cancelled vacations we found ourselves ready for a little getaway after more than 6 months without leaving San Juan Island. Only interested in visiting unpopulated areas, wanting to see some new birds, but also to stay in the state of Washington, we decided to head due east from home, east of the Cascades into Okanogan County. While we had explored the Winthrop/Twisp area before, this time we decided to go further east, renting a home-base cabin 30 minutes east of Tonasket out in the woods.    It didn't take long to start seeing new ..read more

As this unconventional year has gone on, the motivation to blog has been low, even though spending time in nature and the outdoors has been my greatest solace. This has been my longest hiatus ever from blogging, but I've still been doing a lot of photography and do miss having an outlet to share my photos! So here's an attempt at getting back to it again. While July was an incredible month (read: like "normal" aka the old days) when we had visits from all three Southern Resident pods including a two-week stay by J-Pod. August, by contrast, has been very quiet on the whale front for us, with j ..read more

While it's been hard to find the motivation to blog in the last month, it hasn't been hard to find the motivation to go out into nature. Not only is April one of my favorite months on San Juan Island regardless, but it's been especially comforting to find some peace and sense of normalcy in these crazy times. Before things really shut down and the stay at home order was put into place, we got out for one more on the water encounter with J-Pod in San Juan Channel back in mid-March. As we're quickly heading towards an unprecedented April with NO orca encounters, those two encounters from March ..read more

After a sunny start to 2020, it has been a very wet and windy year so far! This weekend we finally got a break in the weather, so we took advantage to get out on our boat to go birding in Griffin Bay, adding half a dozen species to the photo year list in the process! Here are some highlights from this morning on the water. Mew gulls Ancient murreletMarbled murrelets Long-tailed duck Long-tailed ducks Common murre Common murres Pigeon guillemot Red-necked grebe Back on land - Cooper's hawk ..read more

With the end of 2019, so too came the end of my first decade tracking my bird year lists. While I traveled a lot throughout the year, I didn't go as far as some years, with just three states/provinces visited (Washington, Oregon, British Columbia). As a result, it's perhaps not surprising that 2019 was a tie for my second lowest year list count at 192 species. I fell short of my goal of reaching 200 species, and also fell just short of my goal of photographing 90% of the species on my year list, registering 88.5% with 170 species photographed. Dave and my dad have also participated in the a ..read more

Normally I associate this time of year with bad weather, short days, and hunkering down inside, but the last week has proven that wildlife in this region can be epic regardless of the season! On December 21 we headed out on the water with friends before taking off for the Christmas holiday, and were surprised to find an active group of 10+ humpbacks in the Strait of Georgia. Humpbacks, like transient killer whales, were rare when I first started spending time here in the early 2000s, but both have been increasing dramatically in recent years. Even with the recent influx of humpbacks, we expec ..read more

Things have been changing so much and so quickly in the Salish Sea; the transformations are astounding. When I first started spending time up here 20 years ago, both humpback and transient killer whales were rare sights. Now, they are around almost daily - even in November! With a friend up visiting for a long weekend, we headed out on the water with Maya's Legacy today and our sightings rivaled a good day during the "peak season" (whatever that is anymore!) Early in the morning a report came in of the T18s near Orcas Island, and luckily they didn't travel too far too fast. We caught up with ..read more

Today is Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead), where every year I take a moment to remember the Southern Resident killer whales we've lost over the previous year. You can find all my previous Day of the Dead tributes here; it's hard to believe I've been doing this for a decade! I think it's so important to both remember the stories of the whales we've lost and to honor them; so many of them, both in life and in death, fuel our fight for a brighter future for this unique population of whales. J17 Princess Angeline J17 was one of the iconic whales of J-Pod from the very first day I met them, a ..read more