The weather was a little chillier than we’ve become accustomed to here on Vancouver Island lately but that didn’t stop us from setting out on our adventure. This adventure turned out to be rather fruitful as we stumbled upon multiple sets of humpbacks throughout the tour.

The first 2 humpbacks we were fortunate enough to see were Nike (BCX1377) and an unknown friend. Nike is one of the most recognizable humpbacks in the Salish Sea with his dark fluke and signature Nike checkmark. Unfortunately for us, Nike’s friend was not so easy to identify and we are still working hard to figure out who our mystery whale is. The easiest way for us to ID our humpbacks is to see the ventral (under) side of the fluke. Flukes range from all black to all white with different markings and scaring that help us determine an individual. Nike’s friend didn’t grace us with a fluke but that’s alright because not all hope is lost. We do have a picture of the dorsal fin and while this is a significantly more difficult way to ID our humpbacks we will continue to try.

Nike and friend put on quite a show for us as they demonstrated the incredible power behind their pectoral fins with peck slap after peck slap. Peck slaps are one of the ways that our humpbacks communicate with each other. It’s possible that they were peck-slapping at each other or even at humpbacks further away.

Maybe they were trying to communicate with our secound duo as not long after leaving Nike and friend we lucked out finding 2 new humpbacks to hang out with. This time we knew exactly who our 2 whales were. Slice (BCX1057 calf 2021) and Vanta (BCX1730). These 2 definitely make an interesting pair, to say the least as there is such a huge age difference between them. Perhaps Vanta (18) is just showing Slice (2) how to be a humpback.

At one time we assumed humpbacks were more solitary whales but while their numbers continue to increase we’ve found this to be completely untrue. We do still see our humpbacks travel solo quite a bit but as the years wear on we see them travelling more in duos, trios and even even more! Perhaps as their numbers continue to increase we will be able to develop a better understanding of their natural social structures.

After an exciting morning with our humpbacks, we went to visit our stellar sea lions and our harbour seals. Hanging around the seals was a majestic bald eagle. To finish up our trip we made a stop at the Gabriola bluffs to pay our cormorants a visit before heading home!

July 17, 2023 - Humpback Soup!

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