Orca

[AndyK]

We have Orca’s visiting our backyard today.
I can see them from inside the house right now
There are about 3 that I can see and it seems like a mom and 2 babies.

I don’t have a camera just a phone and it’s like playing whack a mole with them.
This is the best pic I have so far.
There are more pics on video and my neighbors will probably share a bunch.
I will try to post better ones later.

Anyways this is the first time in the 8 years of me being here that I’ve seen them.
Always heard about local orca but this was a first.

 

[LMichaels]

How cool is that.

 

[BobH-SCW]

Must be breathtaking to see in person!

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

Looks like a grand day !

 

[Peter Gallagher]

very cool!

 

[Mike-BBQ]

Saw an article in some paper yesterday noting that Orcas have a brain as complex as humans, and have been known to try and share food to communicate and connect.

Cool sighting!

 

[John Burns]

That's awesome you got to see some Orcas! There are 3 main "groups" of Orcas.

Residents, which mostly eat fish and stay in the same general area, and have tightly knit pods made up of related individuals. These are the most vocal of Orcas and often "talk" to each other very frequently.

Transients, which also eat mostly fish, but supplement their diet with marine mammals, and tend to follow a migration pattern across a broader area. They live in pods, but they are often less closely related. They are less vocal than residents.

And then you have the Vagrants, which often don't follow specific migration patterns and don't live in a specific areas. The members of the pod can be completely unrelated, and they tend to eat the widest variety of prey. These Orcas can be very silent most of the time.

I spent time studying the Orca population in Johnstone Straight between Vancouver Island and British Columbia back in 2003 and was very lucky to see a resident pod that we followed for several days.

 

[AndyK]

My wife showed me some more pics this morning.
You can see some of our beach in the last pic.

 

[LMichaels]

Sadly all I get to see are bald eagles All kidding aside they fly right over my deck occasionally see them right outside my decks door

 

[AndyK]

I never get tired of seeing eagles.
Baldies are nice.
My favorites (because of their huge size and rarity) are the Golden eagles.

Trivia note;
Bald eagles obviously are not bald.
They got their nickname because they are piebald in color.