Whale Watching Report

We had an incredible day today! It all started with some very close looks at the gray whale near the western shore of Whidbey Island. Today he was all the way down at West Beach. After leaving the gray whale we headed toward Partridge Bank looking for minke whales. Captain Carl spotted one surfacing amongst the birds, then I spotted another. Before long we had 4-5 minke whales all coming up in the same general area, with tons of bird activity going on at the same time. Bait balls of candle fish were forming all over the place and hundreds of birds were feasting on them. Our minke whales were surfacing very close to the boat. On four different occasions a minke whale came out of the water lunge feeding right in the middle of the feeding frenzy of birds!!! It was probably the best minke whale show I've ever seen in 9 years of being a naturalist. It was hard to leave our entertaining and cooperative whales, but eventually we had to. Little did we know the rarity that would happen a half an hour later. Near the south end of Lopez Island a brown pelican cruised up from behind us, and flew right beside our boat then he proceeded to land on the hand railing of our bow pulpit! It's rare enough to see these pelicans at all, but to have one land on your boat is crazy. We gave this pelican a free ride for an hour, all the way back to our dock, while he preened his feathers, and our passengers snapped photos. As I write this report, two hours after our trip ended, the pelican is still perched on our boat. I think we found a new mascot!!! Naturalist Bart Rulon