Our day began with a trip up northwest toward Parksville, where there had been a land report of transient orca earlier in the day. It was a bit of a wavy ride, with individuals on our two open boat zodiacs getting a nice dose of saltwater to cool them off for the warm day ahead. We arrived on the scene, with our orcas first spotted southeast of Mistaken Island and travelling north. Orcas we spotted today were:

T124A2 Elkugu ♀ (2001)
T124A2A Agafia ♂ (2013)
T124A2B Litton ♀ (2016)

T090C Tigger ♀ (2010)

The rest of the T090 pod were said to be spotted nearby, which is why we think T090C Tigger was spending time with the T124A2s today. They were swimming amongst the waves and had to put more work in to get their bodies out of the water on a wavy day like this. This makes for more active photos! There were a couple of close passes the orcas had with our three vessels today, zigzagging in between and underneath boats.

After our hour with the whales was up, we headed back southeast towards Gabriola Island, where many Harbour Seals were spending time in the water and slapping their tail fins on the surface of the water. Researchers believe that Harbour Seals slap their tail fins on the water as an act of dominance over the other seals and it could also be a method of sexual selection of the male seals by females.

Our last two stops of the day were at the Gabriola bluffs to view the Cormorants in their nests and the Sea Lions at Harmac. The Cormorants are in the midst of collecting their nesting materials before the females lay their eggs. Cormorants lay eggs that are incubated for about 25-28 days in the nest before they hatch. Cormorant chicks spend about 21-28 days in the nest before they go out on their own. Each Cormorant can have between 1 to 8 eggs, sometimes in two different broods during the summer. The sea lions at Harmac were a mix of both California Sea Lions and Stellar Sea Lions. They were quite sleepy this afternoon, with only a couple of them active in the water and the rest were having a nice afternoon nap. Harmac is a very common area for sea lions to spend time, as it’s a nice resting place for them out of the water, while also being somewhere they can easily dive into the water at depth to catch fish, octopus or invertebrates.

Soon our vessels returned to the Nanaimo Harbour, and we couldn’t ask for a much better day than this!

Photos on this day were taken by Naturalists Vanessa Vereschahen, Aly Kohlman and Carmen Murphy.