Norwegian Orca Survey

The weather forecast for today is not so good, but after three days without any tours at all, we are finally going out to sea again. We look out on the front deck, but it won’t be easy to spot sperm whale blows today in this misty weather.

We closely watch the horizon with binoculars, and suddenly one of the guides spots something in the distance, and we turn. I try to get a glimpse of it to see what it is, but it takes some time until they appear at the surface again.

OMG! It’s orcas! The reason why I’m even here. And we are getting closer and closer while they are crossing the waters in front of us. So, camera out! I really don’t want to miss this moment. But I also don’t want to take the best spots from the passengers while I’m working and hold back.

In between, they dive and stay below the surface for multiple minutes. We see them surface one more time, and then the captain speeds up the boat again to find something new.

Can’t we stay with the orcas? Please? It’s the first time I’ve seen them from a boat, and we see them so rarely! It will be hard to find sperm whales today anyway, and those we can see almost every day.

But we continue our journey and search for blows again. But if you ask me, that could take forever.

Instead, we find another pod of orcas, appearing in front of the misty mountains. That somehow fits their devilish reputation.

This time, they surface more often and in the end even come very close to the boat. The group includes multiple males with their up to 2 m long dorsal fins. And a calf that’s side by side with its mom.

It starts raining, but today this will definitely not kill my mood. We found my orcas today!

We stay with them for a while, but with the weather conditions, we don’t even need to try to look for another species. Besides, other cetaceans are almost never found in close proximity to killer whales anyway. Even though this group is most certainly a pod of fish-eating residents and no danger to other marine mammals.

Pod of norwegian killer whales

Back on land, I sit down with my laptop to check the photos. I got some - hopefully - good ones for photo-identification and send them to the team of Norwegian Orca Survey. The Norwegian Orca Survey was founded as a research organization in 2014 and brings together scientists from different institutions to find out more about this amazing species. The group hereby focuses on the orca populations that reside in Norwegian waters or frequent them regularly.

By the shape of the orca’s dorsal fins and saddle patches, and potential nicks and scars, the researchers are able to identify individual orcas. I would love to know which pod we have seen today and how old the calf might have been.