The sun was shining and spirits were high and we had two of our vessels leaving the dock in Nanaimo to head out and start the search for whales. Thanks to protective measures in place for our whales, none of the animals in the area have any sort of long-term tag or trackers on them, so each day we start fresh and use our own eyes to find the whales.

Today we headed out into the Strait of Georgia to see what might be waiting for us out there. It wasn’t long before we spotted blows in the distance and decided to go see who it was. When we approached, it looked like two Humpback Whales travelling together. With the humpback whales, the easiest way to identify them down to the individual is by looking at the underside of their tail flukes. There are unique colours, scars, and shapes on their tails which are unique to each whale, and with a 20-foot surface to look at on the tail of an adult, it makes it easy when they cooperate and show off their tails.

Sometimes though, they won’t be lifting their tail while they dive, and we will only be left with the tiny “hump” of a dorsal fin to ID from. Sometimes there are other unique features that we can look for on the animals to help narrow things down, like one of the whales here today Kelpie (BCY1276)! When we first saw Kelpie it seemed like they had a skin issue, since their bac had lots o small lumps and sores on it and they were a slightly strange colour. Their skin has since healed but it left the surface with a unique scarring pattern that is very noticeable in photos and in person. Kelpie had a friend travelling with them today, which we IDed as Wisp (BCX1333calf2021)! They were very cooperative for IDing, feeding in the area and lifting their tails before diving below the surface for their food.

Kelpie has been a regular in the area since 2021 where it seemed they showed up as a juvenile. Kelpie hasn’t been cross-matched to any of the humpback whale calves that were known in the area in 2020, but that could still happen in the future! Wisp on the other hand we have more information about. They are the 2021 calf of Ghost (BCX1333) and have been recorded in the area since! Ghost is one of the local whales we tend to see spending the summers here in the Salish Sea, feeding in our nutrient-rich waters. Most of the time we see the young whales returning to the same feeding grounds that their mom did. This is also why we suspect Kelpie is likely a 2020 calf of one of our local humpback mommas!

It was fun watching these two young whales spending time together, and also interesting since we saw them spending time together last year, maybe these humpbacks are friends? More research will show just how complicated the social interactions of humpback whales are!

We left these whales to their food and the boats split up to search in different directions. One went north, stopping to see Seals and Sea Lions along the way, while the other headed south and found one more humpback whale: Europa (BCX0854). Europa is one of our adult female humpback whales, having brought back 4 calves to our waters. Today she was also enjoying the buffet of food under the water, likely feeding on the small schooling fish that are common in the area. As Europa surfaced today, she brought her rostrum (or face) really far out of the water! It gave us a great look at the small bumps known as tubercles that cover the surface of a humpback’s face. They think the sensitive hairs contained in these tubercles are used to help sense their prey in the water which can be important in areas like ours that have poor visibility under the surface.

Soon it was also time to leave Europa to her feeding and start the journey back to Nanaimo.

There was one last stop before the Harbour at the Gabriola Bluffs! The cormorants are back in full force, with hundreds of them covering the cliffs. We also got to see the Bald Eagles that are using this area to nest. If you look closely at the photos of the eagle nest, you can see the unfortunate cormorant the eagles caught for lunch earlier. That’s the circle of life!

All of the amazing photos from the day were captured by the onboard Marine Naturalists Aly Kohlman and Lucy Willis and can be viewed below.