Chalky the Killer Whale is a magnificent male Orca who calls the waters off Bremer Bay home and is our Orca mascot and superstar. Today he decided to have a better look at what was happening around him as his handsome face lifted above the oceans surface and peered back over our way. He is a special male Orca and along with his best mate and Pod Member Hookfin the two get up to much mischief. The boys are of breeding age and both handsome to boot, no wonder they spend so much time swimming with other family pods in the population wooing the ladies. Today the boys were hanging out with matriarch Kidji and her family pod as the male of their family Blade cruised The Patch in foraging mode. The family was pushing towards the shelf and seemed focused as Cookie, El Notcho and their pod moved in on the same foraging ground. Just ahead the birds began to swirl frantically and a large plume of what appeared to be blood surrounded the Orca at the surface.
A kill had been made and they began to pull and tear their meal apart, approaching the murky water a big 2.5 meter Bronze Whaler swam past and we could see that this was not blood but ink! The Orca had finalised a kill of a large squid close to the continual shelf and were now enjoying the reward of fresh calamari. A rare sighting as generally most squid hunts and resulting ink will happen further down in the water column and out of sight. Today we instead had a brilliant opportunity of observing a squid kill and murky ink released by the squid at the last moment. Chalky the Killer Whale was still in on the action and happily made his way over for some more social time with the ladies swimming as one together with the family pod. After such a busy morning the Orca began to rest in the early afternoon and we wished them well for their siesta ahead.
