Howdy fellas. Tonight's Daily Nature Fix is about the one and only time I've seen a Killer Whale in the wild. We were taking a cruise to Alaska and I spent a good amount of time on the observation deck that entire trip. The farther north we got, the more wildlife I'd see. From bald eagles flying about, to mountain goats on the rocky shoreline, to humpback whales jumping around in the surf. One day, I spotted a disturbance in the water and snapped a picture with the telephoto lens on the camera. It didn't quite look like anything I saw up until that point. "Maybe a dolphin?" I thought.
The hight dorsal fin is what made me have that thought. I've seen dolphins swimming along a shore a few times in my life while at east coast beaches. They're not an uncommon sight. Their fins stand up high and obvious, like this one looked. Still, I wasn't really sure if they hung out near Alaska, so when the mystery animal reemerged, I took some more photos.
This time I saw more of it's back and a much more distinct puff from it's blowhole. The gears started to turn a bit at this point. Zooming in on the image on the back of the camera, I saw shiny blackness and some some white, but I wasn't sure if it was just a glare from the sun bouncing off the shiny animal. I thought it may be a pilot whale, perhaps. The whale resurfaced one more time and after another round of photos, I could positive ID this beast.
"Holy shit! It's an orca!" I said somewhat loudly to myself. Even though I was up in the public observation area, there was no one else around. It was kind of cool to have this sighting to myself. When I zoomed in and saw the white patch near the eyes, it was obvious that it was a killer whale. Just as quickly as it showed up, it dove and vanished. For the remainder of the trip and all the years since, I've never seen another one in the wild. I know these are NOT amazing National Geographic quality photos, but the telephoto lens had it's zoom maxed out, it didn't have vibration reduction, AND I used to shoot in .jpeg back then.... but the images are still special to me, on some level. I hope to return to Alaska in the very near future and hopefully have another, maybe closer, encounter with these gorgeous animals.
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***Daily Nature Fix is a daily blog showcasing the natural world. It is all original content using photos, stories, and experiences from my own travels.***