Things were a bit bumpy as we made our way out of the harbour this afternoon in search of whales. Our fleet split up to cover ground, as no whales had been sighted yet on this day.
One of our boats made it nearly all the way to the north end of Lasqueti island before hearing of a pair of humpbacks south of Texada. When they arrived on scene they found Smiley and her new calf doing some deep-dive practice. Soon Cascadia, one of the zodiacs, joined them to watch Smiley and her calf as they circled a small area in the Strait of Georgia. Just as our semi-covered boat was about ready to leave they got treated to a breach from both mom and calf!

Our other zodiac, Keta, found their own Humpback in the middle of the Strait, just off Entrance Island. This whale was doing some deep dives and proved difficult to ID on the water, but once back in the office it was easy to see we had Fallen Knight. Fallen Knight is a proven female, having returned twice with calves to the Salish Sea. Her first calf was in 2019 and her second was just last year. With that track record, she may very well be pregnant again this year and might return with another little baby next year. Fallen Knight is typically easy to ID once you know what to look for. She has almost no markings on her nearly jet black tail, but a rather unique characteristic - it folds in. The right side of her fluke seems to be bent at an odd angle, causing her tail to curl inwards. It doesn’t seem to impact her health, having successfully raised two calves. We aren’t sure what has caused this curl, it could be a genetic mutation, a deformity caused during birth, or she could have had her tail wrapped in ghost gear (abandon fishing gear) for an extended period of time, causing the warp to her tail. Either way, she has returned and is looking happy and healthy.

Below are the photos taken by our marine naturalists Rebeka Pirker, Carmen Murphy, and Vanessa Vereschahen.

Smiley is notorious for hiding her tail, which can often make IDing her on the water very difficult.

Finally a tail! Thanks Smiley! 📸 Rebeka Pirker

Typically when a whale flukes they go on a deep dive, giving you a bit of time before they surface. As Smiley fluked for a dive our naturalists lowered their cameras just in time for the whales to breach - classic.
#1 rule of wildlife photography, when your cameras are down, the wildlife do cool things.
Rebeka managed to get the camera up just in time to catch the splash down from Smiley’s calf!

Sometimes the whales don’t cooperate and our fluke shots are from the side. Above is Fallen Knight, and while we can’t clearly see the bottom of her tail, her fluke folds in on itself. There are no records of any of our humpbacks having a similar fold in their tail which makes us very confident it’s Fallen Knight, back for another year in the Salish Sea.

Below is another example of things not going right when trying to ID your whales. Our camera decided to auto-focus on the water, not the whale! Though there is enough detail in this blurry photo that we believe our mystery whale to be Dalmatian!
Do you agree with our ID? Check out the Keta humpback catalogue and test your own humpback whale ID skills!

August 6th - Humpbacks all around!

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