July 22nd 10:30 - Another whale of a day!
July 22nd was another day full of whales! On our morning tour we saw 6 different humpbacks between the two boats! Our humpbacks are coming back in full force and we are seeing more of them than ever! This mornings tour ended up having a few humpbacks who couldn’t be IDed in the boat but once given a look over in the office we managed to find a match!
On our open vessel Cascadia we spent some time with a single humpback who we later found to be KEY0017 Viking! We looks at the underside of the tail flukes on Viking in the photos taken by naturalist Ryan. Matching the flukes of our whales against the ones in our catalogue can be tricky at times since the different angles of the whales diving can hide the characteristics that we look for when making the ID. In this case we found the two scrapes down the left side of the fluke and a scratch along the bottom on the right side. Once we have an idea of who the whale is we can also check the dorsal find to make sure that they also match. The dorsals can also be used instead of the tail flukes if it has damage to it or a unique shape, otherwise they all look very similar. In this case our mystery whale matched to Viking with both the tail flukes and the dorsal fin!
A photo of Vikings tail flukes. Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
There was also another two mystery whales who showed off their tails then went for a deep dive so we didn’t manage any photos of them so they will remain a mystery!
Vikings dorsal fin. Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Our Semi-covered vessel Kula also left in search of whales and found some humpback whales of their own!
The first group found was a cow-calf pair who was IDed as Split fluke and her new calf! split fluke is an easy to ID humpback due to the large “V” shaped chunk missing from the right side of her dorsal fin. She was doing deep feeding dives with her young calf while we were watching her. On our journey to find other wildlife after leaving Split fluke and her calf behind we came across another humpback! This animal was also different from the one our other vessel had been looking at and we again were able t get an ID! This was KEY0005 Hydra! Hydra has a very unique dorsal fin so we were able to tell it was her even before she started showing off the undersides of her fluke!
After leaving all of the whales behind we also saw lots of seal, sea lions and other wildlife. Check out the rest of the amazing photos taken by our marine naturalists on these morning tours!
Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Photo by Ryan on Cascadia.
Photo by Beka on Kula.
Photo by Beka on Kula.
Pup taking a sand bath. Photo by Beka on Kula.
Photo by Beka on Kula.