San Juan Natural History

  • Orcas on the Edge – National Wildlife Magazine

    Orcas on the Edge – National Wildlife Magazine This little gem caught my eye while I was browsing my email. Part of a typically well orchestrated campaign by the National Wildlife Foundation – the email was asking my support in Adopting an Orca! Good idea or not. Is it true? Are the orca really within…

  • Simple Orca sociology

    When I started reading about Orcinus orca I was pleasantly surprised. They are all over. Very much a symbol of the islands. The house down the street is “Orca Villa”. Bumper stickers. Sports teams. But as I started reading I was quickly fascinated by a couple of things. How recent a lot of the knowledge…

  • Scottish Influence Runs Deep

    San Juan Island Lodging at The Highland Inn Bed and Breakfast, outside Friday Harbor, WA I keep running into this website wherever I turn in the last few weeks. Well linked and well liked I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it as a wonderful place to stay if you are visiting San Juan…

  • Missing orcas (killer whales)

    Researchers fear five missing killer whales are dead Almost certainly this link will rot but until it does. So who is missing? Three Southern K28 – Raven – 12 year old female – last seen Sept 19th L43 – Jellyroll – 34 year old female – last seen Sept 2nd L71 – Hugo – 20…

  • Salish Sea Reprise

    In my search for info on the Salish Sea I came across a much more articulate individual that writes in much the same vein as I. Salish Sea is a blog description of one of the more inspiring moments in the forest life. Transcendental or not the quiet closeness of the observation of the forest…

  • Some Day’s Sunshine

    Sitting in the sunshine at Whitby’s Cafe and Bookstore in waterfront White Rock is just one of those moments. Across sparkling Boundary Bay sits Birch Head as the old timers call it Birch Point for those who come at a land perspective. And amazingly enough rising gently in the fog and haze of the day…

  • Salish Sea

    I first came across this term as I started writing this journal and puzzled I made a note to explore it further to understand what it is and where the term comes from. Wikipedia gives us our first clues. An ancient name for the area stretching from the south of Puget Sound WA to the…

  • Dall’s Porpoise

    “Lips like a moose” used to tease one of my classmates of girls with big lips. Dall’s porpoise have lips like that. It has a tiny head with a great big body with a little triangular dorsal fin. Like the orca it’s body is black and white with several different morph’s. Amazingly it is possible…

  • Harbor Porpoise

    Harbor porpoise are vastly reduced in numbers in the Baltic Sea due to the beleif of fishermen that they reduce vaslty the numbers of fish available. And they are right. Each porpoise consumes several pounds of fish a day. In the San Juans it is the salmon gillnetters that struggle with these animals. They blunder…

  • Pirates Day – September 19

    Okay a day late and a dollar short. But what kind of blog about the San Juans could not mention pirates day? Okay so we didn’t have Morgan or some of the other greats. But we did have our characters. In Bellingham in Fairhaven there is a statue dedicated to the fond memory of Dirty…

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