September 5th - Not one, Not 2, but 8 Humpbacks!?

The Humpback soup continued on the 5th with more gentle giants hanging around!
In the morning w head 2 pairs, Anvil and Split fin, and Zephyr and her calf. Both groups of whales in the morning were doing deep feeding dives and some lazy logging activity. Logging is what Humpbacks do when they are resting. They lay nearly motionless at the surface of the water, often with just their dorsal visible if anything at all. They look just like logs, which is why we call it logging. This is usually a good sign that our Humpbacks are taking a nap. Humpbacks, being mammals, must surface and breath or they drown. In order to be able to rest and still surface to breath, Humpbacks will “turn off” half their brain while the other half remains active to remind them to breath and watch for predators. Whales also don’t sleep for a full 8 hours like we do. Instead they take short naps for 5-20 minutes and when they wake up they go back to traveling or feeding.

Our afternoon tour was treated to 4 groups of whales, totalling 6 humpbacks! Raptor was our first encounter of the evening, a whale we spent a lot of time with last year. Raptor is a large girl, who brought us a calf, Harpy, last year. Humpbacks can produce a calf every 2-4 years, so we are all curious to see if Raptor returns next year with another young one.

The next group was Fader and Jackson. These 2 were feeding and traveling pretty close to our 3rd group, Split fin and Anvil. These 4 have been in very close proximity to each other for a while, often feeding and hanging out. These 4 whales also have very beautiful and distinct flukes, which make them all very easy to ID on the water.

The last whale from our afternoon of Humpbacks was a surprise encounter. As our boat stopped to watch some birds on the bluffs of Gabriola Island when a Humpback whale interrupted them. A whale by the name of Slits was Lunge feeding right infant of Jack Point. Slits was first seen in 2013, making him at least 8 years old, and was sighted going through Dodd’s Narrows in 2017 and was a popular whale in the Campbell River area. It’s a rare event to see Humpbacks actively lunge feeding. Getting to see those large Baleen plates is pretty special.

Below are the photos taken by our Naturalists on our tours today!

Split fin. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (10:30)

Split fin (left) and Anvil (right). Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (10:30)

Bumpy bumpy nose! Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (10:30)

Zephyr and calf. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (10:30)

Anvil (left) and Split fin (right). Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (10:30)

Jackson (left) Fader (right). Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (3:30)

Jackson. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (3:30)

Slits. Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (3:30)

Slits Lunge feeding at Jack Point. Do you see the Baleen? Photo by Cheyenne Brewster (3:30)

Jilann LechnerSeptember 8, 2021Comment