The last day of July was hot and sunny and we got to spend it with some of our favourite gentle giants.

In the morning we crossed the Strait of Georgia searching for humpbacks near Vancouver and found one of our favourites, Divot, doing some foraging near the coal docks. One of our naturalists spotted a second whale, not too far away, who we suspect was Orion. Divot was doing some deep dives and showing off her beautiful tail. Divot is a female who has returned to the Salish Sea every summer since 2008. She winters in Hawaii where she has given birth to 4 calves. Zephyr was first in 2011, followed by a calf in 2014, then came Olympus in 2018, and her 4th was born just last year. Divot is also a grandmother! Zephyr returned last summer with her second calf. It’s amazing to see how many fabulous moms we have in the Salish Sea.

In the afternoon we headed north to see who was hanging out near Lasqueti Island. We found a mom and calf travelling and foraging for dinner. This mom was being very hard to ID by refusing to lift her tail for us. Typically we use the underside of a humpback's tail, or the fluke, to ID the whales. The flukes of a humpback are unique like a fingerprint, covered in various scars, scratches, and natural colour patterns that help us keep track of individuals. Even if 2 humpbacks miraculously had identical colour patterns and scars on their tails the trailing edge is also different. This means that sometimes we have to count notches and spikes on their tails to figure out who they are!
We ID’d this mom using a different method though, the dorsal fin! Humpbacks have small dorsals that are unique as well, though those differences can be less noticeable.
This momma has a small semi-circle of white dots on her dorsal, giving the appearance that a small fish decided to munch on her fin! Thanks to this easy ID marker one of our office staff was able to quickly ID this mom as Corona!
We’ve seen Corona a few times over the years. Back in 2019, we encountered them just once when they were entangled in fishing gear. At this time we didn’t know Corona was a female, we also didn’t know she was pregnant! Thankfully she managed to free herself from the entanglement and returned the following year with her calf. We had Corona around quite a bit last year, often travelling with a second whale, Delta. Delta doesn’t have a confirmed ID, but seeing Corona back this year we a calf we have to wonder if Delta will be seen with a calf this year as well.
We’ve noticed a trend in the last few years that we’ve been carefully monitoring. Groups of humpbacks have been hanging out for extended periods of time during the feeding seasons, and consistently those same whales all return with calves. We noticed it first when Heather and Raptor showed up in 2020 with calves, after spending all of 2019 together. Divot and Slate spent a lot of time together in 2020 and both returned with calves last year. With Delta and Corona spending a considerable amount of time together last year it has us wondering if maybe they had formed their own “mommas to be” party.

Enjoy the photos taken of our whales and wildlife by marine naturalists Val Watson, Janine Van Der Linden, and Vanessa Vereschahen.

July 31st - Divot and momma Corona

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