The Bremer Canyon hunt continues as we press into autumn with another Beaked Whale predation this morning. On arrival the acrid smell of Beaked Whale filled the air as the hunt had only just happened moments before, most Orca were sharing their meal and dispersed into many areas of the SE edge of the Patch. Similar to yesterday the seperate family pods were mingling and working together with Cookie, Queen and Cheryls pod setting a very wide purse-seine net looking for another Beaked Whale. They started in the ‘shallows’ of 900 meters and stretched out to the 1800 meter mark looking for the Beaked Whale and the opportunistic moment when they surface for air after up to and exceeding 2 hours foraging at depths below. Throughout the day we enjoyed playtime with many members of Queens family pod including cheeky Samurai who is carrying fresh new belly scratches from the teeth of another Orca during a previous playful interaction.
The Beaked Whale of late have been much smaller and even some juveniles being hunted which seems to be Gray’s Beaked Whale who are often impacted below the surface so the hunt is extremely efficient and over in a matter of seconds. Once the pods relaxed from their duties the calves went about interacting with the vessel swimming close to and under our vessel for over an hour of entertaining excited play. It was another wonderful day out in the hunting grounds and fantastic to see the Orca yet again securing their meals efficiently. This morning on the jetty we were met by Pearl who is our local resident Australian Sea Lion who was grabbing a fishing rod from the bottom of the harbour and bringing it to the surface for our crew to capture. It was an astonishing display by Pearl who over the many years has spent time with us on and in the water, at one time wanting to get into our dingy with us. Her antics this morning though amazed everyone and we knew we were in for another exciting day in the Bremer, Hood, Henry and Knob Canyons, the home of the Patch.
