Humpback whale lunge feeding on a school of herring. As the years pass more and more humpback whales are remaining all summer in our viewing area. Ten years ago it was one or maybe two now a dozen whales on a whale watching trip is the norm. More whales increase the opportunity for photos of lunge feeding and…
Peder and Ann, just so you know, Angus has informed me that the humpback that is tail slapping is called “Lucky”. If it was my photo with my point and shoot Pentax I would say that it was a lucky photo but from the number of great photos that you have sent us I know that there was a lot of skill involved. This type of behaviour from the humpback whales while we are on a whale watching tour has become much more common over the past few years but capturing such a good photo is still rare. Thank you.
A comment on their visit form our Southern neighbours Ian and Julie Anderson: “Just a note to thank you for a fantastic couple of days, we came away from your lodge in a state of amazement. We had so many wonderful experiences and have told everyone that they should go and see you.” The best advertisement we can get is an endorsement from our guests. Thank you very much. The first photo is mine just to show the location of the lodge in relation to Ian and Julie’s photos. We do occasionally get humpback whales in front of the lodge but they are normally located in the middle of the bay where you see the boat passing. All I can add is that all our guest manage to get good photos of grizzly bears but these photo of whales directly off shore in front of the lodge are a first as is the photo in tomorrows post.
I like David’s photo of the diving humpback whale diving as the swirls in the water shows the power of the dive. The vertical tail indicated that it will be a deep dive and for me that means that it “might” be followed by some lunge feeding or even a breach. These whales show up in out view waters near the north end of Vancouver Island is late May and rather than travelling north to Alaska stay is this area to feed because of the abundance of herring one of their preferred food. David thanks again for the great photos.
They were not paying attention because there were two humpback whales of the stern. And one was closer than the one from the front but I missed the tail again. I did get the photo I wanted one that shows a guest getting a close up of the whale activity we frequently experience on your marine wildlife trips. It in not uncommon to see a dozen or more humpbacks on a day trip from Grizzly Bear Lodge and when we stop for lunch and drift in an area where the whales are feeding it can get very interesting.
While on one or our whale watching tours I took the photo too soon and missed the tail and it was a good show. Made that comment to the guests but when I turned around to the back of the boat nobody was paying attention…
The left edge of the photo is a guest trying to get a good picture of a humpback whale, on a tour, that surfaced close to our boat. When the whales are feeding in our area on the BC coast the best action is no action. That means find a herring ball and sit and wait, running after the whales just creates to much disturbance and they tend to move off to another area. We have a number of humpback whales that summer in our viewing area so the problem is often to “guess” which side of the boat will provide the beat picture. I can think of worse problems.
Humpback whales are identified by the underside and trailing edge of their tail flukes; each one is different just like a fingerprint. In British Columbia humpbacks are given a letter as part of their identification to categorize their fluke based on color. X animals have mostly black tails with less than 20% white on their fluke, Y animals have a fluke that is 20-60% white, while Z animals have more than 60% of their fluke white. Humpback whales often show these tails, or ‘fluke’ while diving, making them ideal candidates for photo-identification projects. This photo is of a humpback that we frequently see on our whale watching tours, it is called ‘Guardian’.
Little easier to tell that it is a humpback whale lunge feeding on a herring ball. Over the years it has become a much more common sight on the British Columbia coast as we frequently encounter a dozen or more whales on a day tour compared to one or two on a good day ten years ago. Still have a hard time convening my guests to ignore the humpbacks when there is a report of killer whales in the area. Saying “don’t worry they will be there when we return” does not seem to satisfy the need for photos.
On this day’s whale watching safari it is hard to tell from this photo what is happening. It is a marine mammal of some kind doing something. It is all a matter of perspective or the guides positioning of the boat maybe even the fault of the mammal for not considering the location of the boat. Clearer photo in tomorrow’s post…
Just like that another season has come to an end. We are grateful for all the wonderful staff and the guests this season. It was an excellent season and we are already looking forward to next May.
One of the highlights of the season was all of the new cubs out. It was awesome to see so many new cubs of the year and that is great news for our bear populations moving forward. We had great spring viewing and this continued through summer. On our river trips we started to see salmon arriving in August and enjoyed some great shoulder season viewing. The fish at the viewing platforms were a little late showing up this year, but viewing during late September at the platforms was great and the estuary viewing remained strong throughout the season.
Out in the whale watching world it was another year that saw large numbers of resident Orca who remained in the area right into October. The Humpback viewing was also great with large numbers feeding in Blackfish Sound. It is so amazing to have these magnificent animals back in our waters in such numbers.
Over the winter and spring we will be doing some repairs and maintenance. We rebuilt the front deck last spring, utilising cedar cut on site. We will continue with some siding, rooms improvements and hopefully a floating sauna ready for the start of our season.
2026 is already looking like a very busy season for us. We only have limited high season availability so please book early to ensure we have space for your group.
Looking forward to seeing you next year
Angus Reid
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