September 6, 2023, 10:30 - Orca and Humpbacks close to home
Another double species day in the books for us! Today we started the tour not too far from home- just off of Lantzville. It was here where we met up with the orca for the day, two different families. Todays whales include:
T037A Volker ♀ (1994)
T037A2 Inky ♂ (2009)
T099 Bella ♀ (~1984)
T099B Holly ♀ (2007)
T099C Barakat ♂ (2009)
T099D Puck ♂ (2015)
T099E ♀ (2021)
This is a bit of an unusual pairing for us. While it’s not uncommon to see families associate and travel together (hello T-parties!), it’s less common to see only a few members of a family. Orcas travel in matrilines, consisting of the matriarch and all of her children. Disappearance isn’t unusual; Females may disperse from their matriline once they are sexually mature, to start their own pod, while sexually mature males may also disperse for periods of time. That’s exactly what’s happened with the T037As, as the oldest son T037A1 Inyo has left to go off on his own adventure for the time being. But what we didn’t expect to see was the two youngest members of the pod gone as well- T037A2 Spinnaker and T037A4 Crinkle. Look like they are still off on their own adventure! Last we saw them, they had joined up with two other rogue youngsters, with the newly formed brat pack off terrorizing the Salish Sea. We’ve seen some interesting behaviour from the whales this year, so these youngsters will be ones to watch. For a deeper dive into the dispersal behaviours seen by the transients, and some apparent differences between the residents and the transients, check out this article published by Baird and Whitehead (2000).
It was great to watch these two families travelling together, and we even got to see the two bigger boys T037A2 Inky and T099C Barakat playing around with each other. Both these boys were born in 2009, and are just starting to show obvious signs of puberty, a process known as sprouting. During this time, the dorsal fin straightens up and grows much larger than the females. Male dorsals can get up to 6 feet tall! We can’t wait to see how big these two will get when they are full-grown.
After spending some time with the orca, we left them on their way and headed south towards Gabriola Island. Here we found two humpbacks hanging out together, Hendrix (BCY1278) and Yogi (BCY0409). Yogi is an easy one for us to ID because they have a very identifiable tail. Yogi got their name from the marking on their left fluke that kind of looks like a bear, hence the name Yogi! Check out the photos below to see if you can spot it. These two were hanging out in tight proximity and feeding together. We’ve seen this behaviour a couple of times in this spot, so there must be good eats here! The humpbacks hunt and consume very small prey relative to their body size. Primarily feeding on krill and juvenile herring, these gentle giants have to consume a whopping 1.5 tons of food a day. With such a prevalence of food in our cold waters, it is common to see the humpbacks feeding to prepare for their long migration back to Hawaii.
We finished up the day checking out some other wildlife nearby, including the Stellar Sea Lions and Harbour seals that like to lounge on the rocks. We always see a variety of bird species on our tour as well, and today we were lucky enough to spot a Great Blue Heron! These birds are the largest heron in Canada and are found from coast to coast. The wingspan of a Great Blue Heron can reach up to 2m across, and can reach speeds of up to 55 km/hr when flying!
All photos were taken by onboard Marine Naturalists Vanessa Vereschahen and Aly Kohlman.
T099 Bella beside her daughter T099B Holly. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Matriarch T099 Bella. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
T099C Barakat - look at how wiggly his dorsal is! Photo by Aly Kohlman.
T099C Barakat behind his brother T099D Puck and another family member. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
T037A2 Inky - this big boy has sprouted (gone through puberty) and he is now getting giant! Photo by Aly Kohlman.
T099C Barakat is quite scratched up. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
T099E behind T099D Puck (sporting some new scratches around his eyepatch), their mother T099 Bella (back), and likely T099B Holly at the front. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Matriarch T037A Volker. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Up close and personal with T037A2 Inky. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Look at cute little T099E’s little face beside their brother T099D Puck. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Little T099E is growing big now! Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
T099C Barakat. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
T099D Puck charging ahead of his T099C Barakat. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Look at that surface tension as T099C Barakat surfaces! Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Hendrix (BCY1278)’s dorsal is significantly more blunt than Yogi (BCY0409)’s dorsal. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Yogi (BCY0409)’s distinct dorsal with a white dot in the middle of it. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Yogi (BCY0409) (right) with Hendrix (BCY1278) (left). Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Hendrix (BCY1278) fluking. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Yogi (BCY0409) fluking. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Hendrix (BCY1278)’s top fluke can be used to ID them due to the white patches and white slash on the topside. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Hendrix (BCY1278) fluking. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
A trio of cormorants, with one drying off in the sunshine. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
A female Harlequin duck. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
An Osprey perched up in one of our trees. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
A floppy little Harbour seal. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
A pair of Harbour seals, with one of them giving the camera a major side eye. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Our sea lions aren’t always super majestic during photos. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Need to scratch that itch. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
Carefully balanced. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
Now this is ultimate relaxation - a California sea lion sprawled out on the logs. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.
A Great Blue Heron. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
What a funny-looking ‘seaplane’ - kidding, this is an itchy River Otter. Photo by Aly Kohlman.
The Gabriola Bluffs from the far side of North Umberland channel. Photo by Vanessa Vereschahen.