July 11th 3:30 - A large pod of Bigg's orca and an elusive humpback whale!

The afternoon boats departed from Nanaimo and headed out into gorgeous conditions in search of whales. The first animal they found was a humpback whale but unfortunately is was being a bit shy and didn’t want to show its fluke more than once!

We left the humpback whale alone and went to spend some time with killer whales instead! The killer whales that we watch are the ecotype called transient/Bigg’s killer whales, and they feed exclusively on marine mammals such as seal, sea lions, porpoises, and occasionally even other whales!

Initially we encountered a lone male nicknamed “Noah” (T49A1). The adult males, or bulls, have much taller fins than the females and can reach up to 6 feet on an older male! You can see from these photos the difference in fin sizes between the adult males, adult female, and juveniles.

After spending some time with Noah we encountered an even larger pod of orca including the T46s, and potentially the T34s and T37s! These whales were traveling in a pretty tight group, reminding us how important family and socializing is for these intelligent animals.

One of the most shocking things one of our boats saw on this tour was a mature bald eagle eating an early supper. We see eagles eating fish often, but that’s not what this bird had on the menu for this Sunday night dinner! A harbour seal pup was prey to two mature bald eagles. We don’t see this very often, but occasionally these large birds will find a seal pup while mom is away feeding and make a meal out of it. Our naturalist managed to get some photos but warning, don’t scroll all the way to the bottom images if you don’t want to see it!

Here are some of the best tours taken during these afternoon tours by marine naturalists Rebeka Pirker and Val Watson.

Two mature bald eagles and a dead seal pup. Photo by Rebeka Pirker

The circle of life! Photo by Rebeka Pirker

Jilann LechnerJuly 15, 20212 Comments