The morning began with a trip south through Dodd Narrows and out through Gabriola Pass into the Strait of Georgia. We waved to the Stellar sea lions on UM buoy as we headed across the strait over to Roberts Bank in search of reported orcas. Cruising up the coast of the Mainland, we ended up at White Islets to see the lovely Stellar Sea lions resting on the rocks. As they were trying to rest, large waves kept tossing the smaller sea lions near the shoreline off into the water! Our reported orcas from earlier in the morning were nowhere to be seen to pick on these sea lions today.

Next, we headed back across the straight back towards Nanaimo to get to Humpback Land, an area where some humpbacks have been spending a lot of their time. Today was no exception. Today’s whale was BCY1107 Dandelion, a new whale for us this year. We have spotted them only once in previous years. Dandelion was first spotted in 2018, making them around 5 years old and they spend most of their time in the waters around northern Vancouver island.

As we were watching Dandelion’s lovely fluking, we saw a large splash in the distance, a breaching mystery whale? Upon further investigation, we came up with nothing. Our breaching whale was playing hide-n-seek with us! After waiting for them to appear for over 15 minutes, we decided to head back toward Nanaimo to view some of our favourites: Cormorants, eagles and sea lions!

Cormorants on the Gabriola bluffs were busy collecting seaweed for their nests, with some already appearing to be laying on their eggs in the nests. Their eggs will be in the nest for 25-28 days before hatching. Cormorant chicks stay in the nest until they are 21-28 days old. Adult cormorants are quite black in colour, but up to one year after their birth, they will appear brown in colour until they grow in their black adult feathers.

The Bald eagle next to the Gabriola bluffs was on the tallest tree in sight, keeping a keen eye on their surroundings, making sure to protect their nearby nest filled with two chicks that we have previously spotted on tours this year.

Harmac Pacific is home to many sea lions, and today was no exception! Dozens of sleepy sea lions were planted on their usual favourite log boom, the closest access to the water for hunting fish. California sea lions and Steller sea lions both have a resting place on the booms, with some of them already having left to their breeding grounds. Stellar sea lions have begun heading back to Alaska for their breeding season, where the largest males will hold down their exposed offshore mating rocks and defend against other males to have access to all the females on their rock. The California sea lions have begun making the journey back to California for their breeding season, where they will return to the same shoreline beach year after year and exhibit similar mating behaviour to the Stellar sea lions, having 10-15 females to every 1 dominant male on their beach.

Photos from this day were taken by Marine Naturalist Carmen Murphy.

June 3, 2023 10:30 - BCY1107 Dandelion in the Strait

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