Whale Watching

We’re not all about the bears, whales are abundant here too!

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.

Guide Photos

eagle sunning
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Yes there is a bald eagle on the centre of the rocky island. The area between Minstrel Island the home of Grizzly Bear Lodge and the shore of Vancouver Island along Johnstone Strait has hundreds of small islands. On the whale watching tour from the lodge we pass many islands and along their shore are dozens of eagles and often black bears.  The black bears require a low tide to encourage them to scour the beach for food. This inter-tidal zone “food” is high in protein and is made up of crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. The guests that have not spent much time on coastal waters are always amazed at the amount of wildlife that can be viewed before we get to the area of the humpback whales, killer whales and other marine mammals.

 

Guide Photos

breaching h;unpback whale on side
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All photographs of breaching humpback whales are a result of a certain amount of LUCK. For the past several years the whale watching days from Grizzly Bear Lodge has the guest viewing between ten and sixteen whales each tour. This means good photo of humpbacks tail lobbing, lunge feeding and surfacing close to the boats however the unpredictable nature of a breach means pictures are rarer.  This breach from the head on perspective is very unusual.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

heron on piling
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These are probably the most photographed pilings in the area of the lodge. They are located in the Glendale River estuary about an hour and fifteen minutes from Grizzly Bear Lodge on Minstrel Island BC. This is also the location of you tour day with the grizzly bears. The pilings are what remain of an old logging camp and next to the float that is used for the day’s base. The base being where we tie the boat to move to a large skiff used for viewing the bear along the shore in the spring or to transport guests to the shore in the fall to drive to the viewing stands up river. The float is also a comfortable place to have the afternoon picnic. The pilings are used as perches for gulls, eagles and in this case a blue heron. Lynn Morris from Great Britain has captured the heron with an excellent “mystic” background.

 

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

eagle watching
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It is harder to get a good picture of a bald eagle than one would think. Not because there are few eagles because eagles are found on the grizzly bear tours, the whale safari and the extra day at the wild river. First is that eagle tend to sit near the tops of trees making their back ground either a blue or a cloudy sky. Second is to position the boat far enough away from the eagle so the photo seems on the same level as the eagle but close enough for a good photo. It all comes down to finding a eagle low in a tree close to the water and wildlife in not always cooperative and eagles will often fly further down the shore or higher if approached to closely. The answer in the digital age is many photos and a little luck and you will have one like Lynn Morris’s “Eagle in a Tree”.

 

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

whale tail
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whale tail 2
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whale tail 3
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France, showing a humpback whale fluking, which is when the whale raises its tail out of the water and descends beneath the surface. The under side of the tail is used to identify different whales by it’s shape, bumps on leading and trailing edge, the black and white pigment pattern and any scars. There are many websites dedicated to humpback whale identification and some that provide the Photographic Catalogue of Humpback Whales in British Columbia.
Humpbacks show great fidelity to their feeding areas and British Columbia is split into two separate regions. The southeast Alaska/northern British Columbia region is estimated to have a population of 3,000-5,000 whales, while the southern BC/Washington population is approximately 200-400 whales. There also appears to be a correlation between feeding and breeding grounds. The majority of humpback whales feeding in northern BC appear to be wintering in Hawaii. The southern BC whales have animals that have been re-sighted off mainland Mexico, as well as Hawaii.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

single orca
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pod of orca
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Whether it is a single large male killer whale or a family pod the feeling is always the same, excitement. A whale watching safari from Grizzly Bear Lodge offers this excitement which may come from viewing orca, humpback whales lunge feeding, Steller sealions, harbour seals, dall porpoise, pacific white-sided dolphins or bald eagles. The variety of marine life in the area of Johnstone Strait between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia is astounding and mostly due to the abundance of herring. Herring are the food of the humpback whales, dolphins, porpoise and salmon. The salmon then become the food for the orca, seals and eagles.

 

 

Interesting Guest Photos

wet black bear
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We followed this black bear as it swam and walked from one larger island to another about two hundred meters (yards) in distance. It swam one narrow passage walked over a small island, swam to a second small island and finally to the final large island where this picture was taken. Grizzly Bear Lodge is located on Minstrel Island partway up Knight Inlet so all tours are by boat through many small island and along the shore so it is not uncommon to see bears swimming. In a summer I will normally see three or four black bears swimming.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

swimming black bear
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Black bears are where you find them. This seems like the statement of the obvious but black bears tend to come down to the beach at low tide in search of protein made up of crab, clams, barnacles, amphipods and other tiny invertebrates. Low tides occur at different times each day so finding black bears is not so much location but being near a good beach at the correct time. Day tours to grizzly bears, whales or to the wild river on the extra day in the lodge all provides opportunities to view black bears. The above photo by Marc and Solange from France was taken returning to the lodge at the end of a whale watching day when we came through a narrow channel and found a black bear swimming between small islands… More tomorrow.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

dolphind porposing
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Pacific white-sided dolphins are becoming more common in the waters between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland. These dolphins are frequently seen on the grizzly bear tour and the extra day trip to Trapper Rick’s as they are on a whale watching safari. Often pods of several hundred dolphins will approach the boat and bow ride or come right up to the prop wash at the stern of the boat. Great Britain’s James O’Donoghue photo shows a few members of a larger pod approaching the rear of their boat having just departed mine.

 

Interesting Guest Photos

lobtailing humpback whale
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Another photo by Gary Wilson showing a humpback whale tail lobbing or slapping. Most of the behaviour of Humpback whales remains a mystery, and tail lobbing is no exception. We have watched Humpback whales raise their huge fluke out of the water and slap it on the surface multiple (ten to twenty) times. It seemed playful, but no one knows exactly why Humpback whales perform this action. It is thought that it may have something to do with communication. The tail lobs apparently can be heard for a long distance underwater.