June 12, 2025, 3:30 PM - Lunge Feeding with Graphite
It was a beautiful day for whale watching as our tour left the dock once again to start the search for whales. We started by heading south, into the Southern Gulf Islands, passing through Dodd Narrows along the way. This narrow passageway gets a lot of current running through it when the tide is changing, since a large volume of water passes through such a small area. These currents work to create a highly oxygenated area, allowing a wide variety of wildlife to live here. Not only is there a rich biodiversity here, but it’s quite fun as well! Riding through the waves on the large, powerful boats like ours is no problem, and it’s amazing to feel the current pushing us back and forth as we transit the narrow area.
After passing through Dodd, we continued south on Stuart Channel, searching all along the way, until eventually heading out into the Strait of Georgia. We are sure glad we did, since it wasn’t long before we spotted a whale in the distance: Graphite (BCX2077)! Lucky for us, when we first arrived, Graphite was going for a dive and lifted his tail right up out of the water, allowing us to catch a photo that we used to ID him. After that, it was all lunge feeding! It’s not too often that we see the humpbacks lunge feeding at the surface like this, as most of the time the feeding would happen below the surface. It seems like lunge feeding is more common earlier in the season, although you can see it throughout the year as well. But, when we do see it, it’s not usually as impressive as what we did today, with Graphite popping up out of the water with his mouth wide open every couple of minutes, taking in huge volumes of water and food as he did. Each of these mouthfuls would contain close to 20,000 L of water, and anything else that was unlucky enough to end up in there as well. Each day, a humpback consumes around a ton of food, or close to a million of their tiny prey! Usually, they will be after small schooling fish or krill, whichever is more abundant in the area. It can be tough to know which graphite was after today, as there were no obvious signs. Sometimes you will see evidence of their food, with the water coming out of their mouth being slightly pink if it was krill, or you see the small fish bodies tumbling out. But today, it seemed to just be water. We didn’t care what he was feeding on; we were just thrilled that there seemed to be so much food for him!
Eventually, it was time to leave Graphite behind, and we headed on to find some other wildlife. The next stop was at Stinky Rock, where the Steller Sea Lions were being very entertaining! First off, it’s always wild to see just how big these animals are. The males can weigh up to 2,800 pounds! This makes them the largest sea lion in the entire world. The females don’t get to the same weights, but rather max out at a still impressive 800 pounds. There were some of the youngsters rolling around in the waves here as well today, showing off the playful nature of the sea lions.
Next, after a tour around Gabriola Island, we ended the day at the bluffs. There was quite a bit of activity going on here, not only with the cormorants flying in and out, but there was a Bald Eagle that was attacking the nests. We watched as it went from nest to nest, until it got what it was looking for, flying off with a tiny baby cormorant in its beak. Although sad to see, we knew it would go towards the Bald Eagles’ own babies. We also saw one of the adults fly in with something white in its talons, which turned out to be a gull. Was this the same gull that we saw chasing off the orca from the bluffs earlier? We hope not, but we won’t ever know. Finally, we got to see the two chicks in the nest itself, one of them taking some time to stretch out their wings. They were hopping around, flapping away, maybe getting ready to start jumping from branch to branch in preparation for flight.
Soon enough, it was time to return to the dock. It was an amazing day spent with all the wildlife. The onboard Marine Naturalist, Val Watson, captured some great photos, which are available to view below!
The underside of Graphite’s tail.
Lunge feeding! You can see the huge volume of water overflowing from Graphite’s mouth.
Graphite’s ventral grooves opening to take in the large volume of water.
You can see inside of Graphite’s mouth from this angle.
A head-on view of Graphite lunging through the water.
Graphite surfacing. You can see his notstrils (right) and dorsal fin (left).
Graphite’s dorsal fin as she surfaces.
A great look at the baleen plates as Graphite lunged through the water.
Graphite exhaling while surfacing.
Water splashing out of Graphite’s mouth as he feeds.
Can you see that the Baleen Plates in the area that Graphite has a freckle are also a lighter colour?
A great look at the Baleen in Graphite’s mouth, and how much room there is in his mouth with the grooves expanded.
Steller Sea Lion watching us from in the water.
You can see the size difference between the large male (in the back) compared to the younger ones and females.
The Steller Sea Lions playing in the waves.
This large male looking back at us from the water.
I think this younger individual could use a tissue.
A Bald Eagle raiding the cormorant nests.
Bald Eagle watching us from the bluffs.
Landing to grab some food.
Success! You can see the cormorant baby in its beak.
Can you spot both of the Juvenile Bald Eagles in the nest?
Juvenile Eagle stretching his wings.
One of the adults munching on a gull.
You can see the poor gull in this photo. But it made a good dinner!