October may be here, but the summer weather doesn’t seem too eager to leave us. It was another gorgeous day as we left the docks in search of whales, with several reports of humpbacks nearby.

Today we encountered several groups of whales:
Nike (BCX1377), Ghost (BCX1333), & MMY0223 were travelling together, Graphite (BCX1210 calf of 2019) was by himself, Prowler (BCX1660) was by themself, and Two Spot (BCZ0432) travelling with Ocular (BCX1705).

We were trying to get to Neckpoint where several humpbacks had been seen in the morning, however before we could make it there we spotted blows near Hudson Rocks. 2 blows rose from the water, followed by the dorsal fins and tails before the whales slipped below the surface. They weren’t down long before they resurfaced, giving us a chance to ID these 2 gentle giants. It was Nike and Ghost! Our naturalist was quick to ID them as we had seen the pair recently, just a bit further north near Nanoose Bay. While we watched the pair diving and travelling south a third whale appeared with them on a surface, catching everyone off guard. We never managed to get photos of the third whale, as they were diving much longer than Nike and Ghost. We do suspect the third whale to be MMY0223, as this whale was glued to the pair during the last encounter and was also doing deeper dives then as well.

After our time with Nike and Ghost, and their mysterious friend, we decided to try and find the other whales that had been reported on Neck Point. We travelled a bit north and waited, but sadly there were no blows. Off to Halibut banks, we went to see if anyone was hanging out near the Sunshine Coast.
We stopped to see some Harbour Seals and Steller sea lions on some rocks outside Sechelt. The Steller sea lions are slowly returning after their summer breeding season, with the large males being the first ones back. Nearly 2 dozen large males crowded the rocks, most sleeping and enjoying the beautiful early afternoon sun, but a handful of them were busy arguing and fighting. It was very entertaining watching the large 2000lb males scrambling over the rocks and joisting with each other on the shores. Nestled nearby were a few dozen harbour seals, keeping their distance so as to not be crushed under the weight of their much larger cousins, too were enjoying the sun as they lounged on the rocks.
Harbour seals only get about 200-250 lbs as adults and are much better suited for life in the waters. Their fused pelvic bones and lack of bone structures in their fins make moving on land cumbersome, so getting out of the way of a stampede of bull Steller sea lions may be a bit tricky.

After leaving our pinniped party we travelled a bit further south towards Halibut Bank where there was a report of a small humpback. Upon arrival, we were able to ID the little one as Graphite! This small whale is the 2019 calf of Slate, a well-known female in the Salish Sea. Graphite was doing large circles around the Halibut Banks buoy, a yellow ODAS buoy (Ocean Data Acquisition System) that marks the shallow rock reefs and also collects weather information that we rely on for knowing the sea conditions. There are often lots of schooling fish in the area because of the rock reefs, so it’s no surprise to find a humpback circling the area. Often there are harbour porpoises and sea lions fishing in the area as well.

While 2 of our vessels were busy watching Graphite, our third boat found 2 other whales. Ocular and Two Spot were frolicking near the Tsawwassen ferry line north of the Flattop Islands. Ocular was born in 2016 to “Humpless” a humpback who has almost no dorsal fin, likely due to a boat strike or entanglement. At only 6 years old Ocular already bares the scars of entanglement. Ocular has 2 large bumps at the base of their tail, a result of built-up scar tissue from having something tightly wrapped around their tail. This scar tissue doesn’t seem to hamper Oculars activity, and it makes it pretty easy to ID them when they do lift their tail out of the water. Two Spot is a confirmed male and another frequent traveller of the Salish Sea. This pair of whales was rolling in the water and slowly travelling south when we left them in the Strait of Georgia.

As we made our way back towards Nanaimo our boats decided to see if there were any more whales near the Flat Top islands off Gabriola Islands southern coast. Our boat that had been with Two Spot and Ocular found another whale much closer to Gabriola Island, it was Prowler! As they stopped with Prowler the other 2 vessels found another pair of whales not too far away. It turned out to just be Nike and Ghost again! They could also see the blows of 2 whales in the distance, likely Two Spot and Ocular. So they traveled over to see Prowler who was bubble netting!

What is bubble netting? Bubble net feeding is a foraging technique used by marine mammals to trap fish in a small area before feeding on them. Humpbacks were first reported doing this behaviour near the north end of Vancouver Island and it seems to have spread to many whales over the last few years. This behaviour was likely learned by watching other species of whales do it, and then a few humpbacks began teaching it to others.
When the whales locate a bait ball they swim in a circle around the food blowing curtains of bubbles from their blow hole in a spiral. This curtain of bubbles reflects surface light, startling and confusing the fish in the centre and forcing them to gather in tight balls as they don’t realize they can’t swim through the curtain. Once the food is contained in a tight ball the whales dive below and surface in the middle, mouths open to engulf as much food as possible.
This foraging method is used primarily in groups, however, Prowler has been known to solo bubble net feed. We witnessed Prowler bubble netting alone in 2020, swimming in straight lines and doubling back to feed on fish who stopped at the bubbles. Last year we encountered Prowler yet again bubble netting, however, this time they were with another whale. They were teaching Valiant, a young humpback, how to solo net feed!
Today Prowler was once again on their own, but they were not strait line bubble netting. Today they were practicing full-circle bubble nets! They didn’t surface in the middle as one would expect, but rather to the side of the bubbles. Seems they still need some practice before they’ll get it down, but it’s very cool to see this feeding strategy being used by more whales in the Salish Sea.

Below are photos of our whales and wildlife taken by marine naturalists Janine Van Der Linden, Rebeka Pirker, and Vanessa Vereschahen.