Killer whales and humpback whales are often seen during our wildlife tours. There are resident whales and transient whales that can be seen feeding and playing in our waters.
This photo shows that orcas exhibit dramatic coloring, with glossy black upper surfaces and brilliant white bellies. Appearing lighter from below and darker from above this allows the Orca to blend into the ocean environment and camouflage itself from prey. Even the top ocean predator need to be able to appear invisible while hunting.
Whale watching trips from the lodge will often eat their picnic lunches on the water. Sitting quietly becomes a time for excellent viewing of the surrounding marine life. Humpback whales are very cautious is an area with boats traveling likely because they cannot be sure of their direction of travel or any sudden change that may occur. But we have found that by sitting quietly while other tour boats are returning to exchange their guests we are able to enjoy close up wildlife viewing.
The northern resident (fish eating) orca in our whale watching area number more than two hundred and fifty individuals. This community consists of 3 clans (A, G and R) and numerous pods within each clan. The individual pods seem to contain less than a dozen members but will often join together to travel in larger groups. The killer whales viewed behind our boat were part of a larger group that was in front. It is best to avoid being in the middle of the group of orca but it is not possible to control their action as pods split off to travel alone.
The classic photograph for an orca is breaching. All of the books on marine mammals have numerous pictures of killer whales and most of them are breaching. I would assume that the photographers have spent hundreds of hours on the water and countless pictures of splashed. Guest coming to Grizzly Bear Lodge expect that this will be the case when they go on a whale watching safari to the whale watching area in Johnstone Strait. The truth of the matter is that although we do see breaching orca on a reasonably regular basis it is not easy to get a photo especially a good photo. For some reason orca do not announce their intention to breach and do not repeated breaches so you can be prepared to get that clear focus.
Sometime on the evening of the arrival day guest will go on a local wildlife tour. It may be before or after diner depending on the tide. The object of the tour is to find black bears on the beach and that means there needs to be a low tide to have a beach for the bears. It tour is an hour or so depending on the wildlife viewing. It allows the guest to become familiar with the guides and boats and to gain some experience of photographing from a boat.
Great photo of a humpback whale into its dive but would not work for identification. The whale watching companies in the viewing area used by Grizzly Bear Lodge are constantly trying to determine which whales are in the area. Whale identification requires a clear photo of the underside of the tail to view the patterns of white and black as well as all the nicks and scars.
A black bear and cub stroll along the beach on one of the evening wildlife tours. A low tide provides the ideal conditions for the bears to be on the beach. Comparing this black bear photo with yesterday’s post it is quite obvious which bear has the higher hump and is the grizzly.
The whale watching tour leaves the lodge between 7:30 and 8:00 to travel the fifty-minute boat ride to Johnstone Strait. Mid-morning we have a bathroom break in Telegraph Cove on BC’s Vancouver Island. The picnic lunch we carry is often eaten drifting on the ocean currents. This day for a change we tied to the bull kelp that grows along the shore. It was also the same day that a humpback whale decided to spend some time in the same kelp bed. It was less than 10 meters (yards) from the boat and spent about thirty minutes rolling and playing in the kelp. We were quite and the whale did not move off until another boat made noise running up Blackfish Sound about a kilometer (mile) away.
Wikipedia offers a good explanation of spyhopping: “When spyhopping, the whale rises and holds position partially out of the water, often exposing its entire rostrum and head, and is visually akin to a human treading water. Spyhopping is controlled and slow, and can last for minutes at a time if the whale is sufficiently inquisitive about whatever (or whomever) it is viewing.
Generally, the whale does not appear to swim to maintain its “elevated” position while spyhopping, instead relying on exceptional buoyancy control and positioning with pectoral fins. Typically the whale’s eyes will be slightly above or below the surface of the water, enabling it to see whatever is nearby on the surface.
Spyhopping often occurs during a “mugging” situation, where the focus of a whale’s attention is on a boat rather than on other nearby whales. Spyhopping among orcas may be to view prey species. For this a spyhop may be more useful than a breach, because the view is held steady for a longer period of time.”
Mussels and barnacles are a staple source of protein for black bears along the British Columbia coast. On grizzly bear tours, whale watching trips or the evening wildlife tour from the lodge black bears are often on the beach at low tide. This bear has found an ideal location that allows it to scrape the branches of this tree to eat the mussels and barnacles. Extreme low tides always bring more bears to the beach because the parts of the beach that are exposed at these tides offer a source of food rarely available.
Just like that our season has come to an end. I would like to thank all of our wonderful guests and staff who made this year a huge success. I am happy to stay that all of our team is planning to return next season. We are actively taking bookings, with dates starting June 1 2025. Hope to see many of you next season.
The wildlife viewing this season was awesome. A couple highlights that come to mind was the shear number of salmon in our local rivers, as well as the abundance of Resident Orca. With salmon returns being so strong this year, we were happy to see bears in excellent condition. By the end of our season most of the bears had packed on a lot of weight and were getting very “picky” about what parts of the salmon they would eat. Hopefully this will translate into more cubs being born this winter. Another positive was the weather conditions. We had enough rain to keep our fire risks low and it made for some excellent wild berries. The bears took full advantage of this, with the berry season extending far past its normal conclusion. This did mean that we had to work hard to find bears during our summer season, (as they were often feeding on the berries deep into the forest), but moving forward it is excellent that they had such an abundant food supply. The Humpbacks also didn’t disappoint, with great numbers and a few new calves returning with their mothers to feed. After a slower year for resident Orca sightings, this season was one of the best that I can remember. In fact as Im writing this the A62 and A23’s are still being spotted in the area by dedicated biologists. Strong numbers of Chinook and Chum salmon are providing them with a steady food source. There are a lot of positive signs and we are hopeful that 2025 will be another great season.
Over the winter and spring we will be doing some repairs and maintenance. We plan on having a new cedar front deck built in time for the 2025 season, as well as new ceilings and paint in parts of the lodge and rooms. Theres always projects on the go.
Felix, Julien, Ryan, Zack and Myself all look forward to welcoming guest in June. See everyone soon.
Angus Reid
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