July 23rd - Humpback whale mom and calf on a beautiful, sunny day!

It was a beautiful day when we left the harbour on the 23rd and headed out into the Strait of Georgia in search of some wildlife. The trip did not disappoint! We ended up finding a humpback whale mom travelling with her calf in the Strait as well as a ton of other wildlife!

The best, and most common way, to identify a humpback whale is to wait until they go for a deep dive and put their tail flukes out of the water and you can snap a picture of the underside of the flukes and match it against known humpbacks to figure out who it is you’re looking at. Sometimes the whales don’t cooperate that well though, as was the case today. This whale never showed off her tail flukes so we had to use the dorsal fin for identification instead. The reason this isn’t done as often is that unless they have a very unique injury or shape to their dorsal it is very hard to tell dorsals apart. Lucky for us this whale happens to be one you can ID from their dorsal. The unique shape told us that this whale was Raptor!

Raptor is a humpback whale that is commonly found in this area of the Salish sea and last year was known to associate with another humpback, Heather. It turns out that this year both Heather and Raptor have calves with them! There has been some research done showing that pregnant humpbacks have been known to associate with each other during their pregnancy, although the reason for this is still unknown. No matter the reason they do it, it’s fun to think about there being humpback “mommy to be” groups out in the water.

This time of year its not only the humpbacks that are becoming moms again. During this trip we saw harbour seal pups, baby cormorants, and even some gull chicks! It was a great day spent on the water in the sunshine seeing all the thriving new life that the summer brings.

If you are interested in joining us on a tour of your own you can give us a call at 1-250-667-5177 or book online through our website! Enjoy the rest of the photos from the day taken by naturalist Rebeka.