Encounter with aType D Orca

After an incredible hour with Type B1 Orcas which escorted us away from South Georgia, it was far from our minds that the following day would yield an even more amazing Orca encounter. 

We were on the bridge wings in the cold grey light of dawn. The first officer pointed out the ominous wall of ice on the horizon - iceberg A23a, the size of London, which is creeping slowly north towards South Georgia. Birding was a little slow, with several Blue Petrels and a single old adult Snowy Albatross the only birds of note in the first hour. Out of nowhere, Philip exclaimed he had seen a fin and sure enough we both latched on to what was clearly a male Orca, heading east towards our vessel. Predicting where it would surface, we were both quite shocked to see it had a rounded, almost bulbous head, and virtually no eye patch - surely a Type D! We looked at each other in amazement and the next time it surfaced we fired off rapid shots with our cameras. Quickly checking the viewfinder and BOOM! It was clearly a Type D! 

 

 Pandemonium broke out on deck as we tried to alert everyone; it was still early and there were few people around. Fortunately, the Orca was travelling steadily and continued to surface enabling a few people to scramble to the deck in time to get a glimpse, and for me to secure a bit of shaky video footage. The vessel maintained course, as did the Orca and it soon faded into the distance, leaving us shellshocked. We had always thought there was an outside chance of bumping into this most elusive and unknown of Orca ecotypes in subantartic waters, but we never for a moment thought it would actually happen.

 

Type D Orca live in subantarctic waters, are thought to be fish-feeders and are really quite distinctive. Along with the tiny white eyepatch, they have a very rounded head - think Pilot Whale - and a narrow, pointed, swept-back fin. With views like we had, it was really distinctive. Type Ds were identified from a mass stranding in New Zealand in 1955 but have been only rarely seen since. There is some great footage on Youtube from a research expedition done off Chile in 2019, which is worth a look.