We’ve been lucky enough to encounter the newborn calf little neo for the past three days straight! It’s truly incredible to see how protective the pod are of their tiny new member! The pod surfaced tightly with the youngster right in the middle with its tiny head peaking through for only a fleeting glimpse! The bull Nani has been SO protective, never more than a metres distance from the newborn!
We were blessed with the presence of over 4 pods in the canyon today! With Nibbles, Nani, Split-tip and Urkel’s pods in the vicinity we were BOUND for some more action! You can definitely tell its getting later in the season, with the increasing numbers of orca within close proximity of the hotspot! After a morning of working hard and playing cat and mouse with the widely spread, deep-diving orca we hit the jackpot!
ALL the pods started to surge west! They’d heard something in the distance for sure! Was it a beaked whale or another pod that’d honed in on their prey? It didn’t matter, we were off! Orca were appearing in every direction! The orca looked like bullets piercing through the surface as white water pooled and sprayed off their face! You could see the turquoise outline of the glowing saddle-patches rushing just beneath the surface at speed! As the orca rose up the swell and porpoised their entire body out of the water it was never long before another followed closely behind!
Everything came to a screaming halt! Footprints appearing all over! The orca had dived! It wasn’t long before they were back up and changing direction! The pod’s had done a complete 180! The pods spread out to cover more ground, had they missed out? As we punched back into the weather we encountered THREE beaked whales surfing the waves, only breaking their fins above the surface! WHERE WE”RE THE ORCA? After further observation, it seemed as though these three were LUCKY and making a run for it as oil slicks began to form at the surface! How many had the orca been successful in taking down?
The slicks continued to form sporadically over the coming hour, all of which were of a substantial size! Hunting with multiple pods has been so much more successful with kills every day recently AND more than once a day! As per usual, the orca became much more friendly and interactive with the vessel after their bellies were full!
Almost every pod had their turn passing our bow, dipping and diving beneath us for a quick hello! Split-tip is my (Brodee) favourite orca and we were so pleased when the huntress came within arm’s reach of the bow, turning on her side and showing her impressive size as she cruised down our starboard side! As we called “last drinks” the entire pod raised to the surface in unison just off our port bow with a calf on the inside of us and its mother, just WOW! It was such an epic end to another GREAT day in Bremer Bay for Killer Whale Watching!
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