Yesterday while wrapping up a red-legged kittiwake count of all the seabird cliffs on St. Paul, Greg and I came upon a large pod of the world's most famous dolphin, the killer whale.The first visual cue was a column of white mist highlighted against the dark backdrop of Otter Island, the unmistakable exhalation of a Cetacean. Then a tall fin emerged, slicing through the glassy surface. The over-sized erectness of a male killer whale's dorsal fin goes beyond serving the function of stability, and is the sole outcome of sexual selection. Female dorsal fins are less than half the size. This isn't to say that males exhibit dominance over the opposite sex. In killer whale matriarchal society, females are in charge, where offspring form lifelong bonds with their mothers in pods that can span several generations. The group we encountered contained at least eight female-types (younger males are indistinguishable from females until they sprout their taller fins), two calves, and this adult male.
Canon EOS 60D, Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM + 1.4x, ISO-320 f/5.6 @ 1/5000 sec.
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