San Juan Island sea kayak wildlife update for Tuesday, June 1:
Yesterday afternoon Debbie and I paddled out for a 3 hour sea kayak tour with a private group. We were thrilled with the wildlife we saw-- lots of harbor seals sunning themselves and bald eagles doing exploratory flights. Debbie even found us some purple ochre sea stars to check out!
The highlight of the trip was catching a glimpse of wild bald eagle behavior that neither she nor I had ever seen before-- or even heard about! We saw a bald eagle chasing a pelagic cormorant into the water! Directly in front of us was a pelagic cormorant flying down towards the water, and hot on its trail was a bald eagle! The eagle was flying quickly and looked to be gaining for a few seconds before the cormorant finally hit the water and disappeared. As soon as the cormorant was gone, the eagle pulled up, turned back, and flew back to shore.
Was the eagle hunting the cormorant? It certainly appeared so! Currently I'm asking all the biologists/naturalists/locals if they've ever seen that kind of interaction, and I'll let you know what consensus is.