Bait Balls - Aug 3 Trip Report

We’ve been so busy running two full tours almost every day we haven’t had time to update the blog as much as we would like! But rest assured, we’ve been having incredible days out on the water!

So on to Aug 3…

The day started with a misty (but not too misty) run towards Weynton to start our search for wildlife. We found a few sleepy humpbacks, snoozing after their swims in the strong currents not long before. As the morning continued, the humpbacks started waking up, as did the birds. The common murres have started showing up, and more and more rhinoceros auklets are sharing the water. After a brief talk about how the birds drive the bait fish into “bait balls”, as if on cue, all the birds started congregating on one spot. Rhinos from all around were diving into the water, and gulls started flying in from every direction. A bait ball had formed. And the humpbacks knew it too….three different humpbacks came to feast on the small fish. Just before the morning ended, we heard a report about Bigg’s orca making their way past Alert Bay towards Telegraph Cove. We rushed over there (with a quick stop to check out some Dall’s porpoise) and were rewarded with some great views of them cruising up the coastline.  

Out again for the afternoon, we were happy to see the Northern resident killer whales (A54 matriline) cruising up Blackfish Sound. They were extremely spread out, but we managed to get a good view of the closest ones as they swam past. They disappeared into the open waters of Queen Charlotte Straight, which gave us a natural pause to head out to find some humpbacks. We found more bait balls and more whales.  Ripple was out fluking and feasting, and Dapple (her calf from last year) was hanging around quite close. He was probably quite happy to hang around mom, even if she did kick him out of the house months earlier. He did a single full body breach just after we arrived, and then the two of them (and a few more humpbacks) continued to feast as the birds drove the fish around them. Ripple opened her mouth wide to start trap feeding (feeding behavior only seen in this part of the world!), but then decided against it and gave a nice big fluke instead.  

On the way back someone asked to see an otter, so we showed them 30 instead of 1! The otters have been a nice treat to have in our neck of the woods.