Transients and Dolphins Take Center Stage

Pacific White Sided Dolphins and Transient Orca take over the Georgia Strait and lower Johnstone Strait. Even a few that I don’t know how I could have missed in the last report! There are a few Humpbacks in the area, but Orca are more visible. Resident Orca are all in the upper reaches of Johnstone Strait and even farther West while Transients are back to running closer to home, Powell River, Savary Island and Lund to Cortez and Quadra Islands. A few Dall’s and Harbour Porpoise reports round out the Cetacean Sightings Reports.

10:49 am Orca tight to shore by the west side of Hill Island.

September 18:

11:15 am Found 5 Transient Orca, all small fins, travelling from Hill Island to Breton Islands and Open Bay (off Quadra) then lost them by 2 pm.

September 18:

1pm 4 Orca all small fins by Breton Islands.

8:48 am Spotted at least 2 Orca off the NW tip of Texada (Coho Point) to Rebecca Rocks, Powell River. Quickly grabbing gear and a neighbour who had never been whale watching other than off her deck, we headed out. We came out between Texada and Rebecca Rocks and joined Elvis, Eagle Eye Adventures who was the first to find the Orca between Vivian Island off Harwood. There were a total of 6 Transients who had just made a kill and were sharing their food. We stayed with them as they made their way up to Savary Island and left them with Jen, Campbell River Whale Watching as they headed towards Mitlenatch Island around 1:30 pm. We headed back with a stop at Vivian to look at the large number of Sea Lions and Harbour Seals when we heard of another group of Transients by the Copeland Islands and Lund headed South from Jen, Campbell River Whale Watching. Off we went…. Picked them up right outside Lund and with a quick pitstop in Lund, lost them for a short time till we again joined up with them off Dinner Rock, found by Geordie, DMS, and continued South with all 8 Transients leaving them close to the Harwood Island shore in front of the Powell River Mill around 5:40 pm. That made for a day with a total of 14 Transient Orca, flat calm waters and sunshine for the long day!

September 17:

6:48 pm Geordie had that group of Orca you had off Grant’s Reef Northbound.

September 17:

10:15 am 6 Transient Orca in Teakerne Arm.

11:30 am 2 or 3 Orca (Transient Orca assumed) off Kelsey Bay towards Petersen Island.

Late in the day: heard rumour that there were some Transients above Lund, but not heard from any actual sightings report.

Sept 16 update to Simon’s sightings of Sept 14;

Hi Susan, After going over the pictures we actually had 16 transients off Hornby Island T100b and T100C were also in the mix. We also had a large Humpback 2.5 miles west off Sentry shoals westing. Warmest Regards,

8:30 am PWS Dolphins by Cinque Islands

September 18:

9:25 am 300+ PWS Dolphins in Discovery Pass.

Later and all day: A zillion PWS Dolphins at the Kanish Bay bait ball again.

September 18:

7 pm At least 200 PWS Dolphins by Cinque Islands making their way North.

8:15 am 50 PWS Dolphins by Brown’s Bay

September 17:

8:52 am 60 PWS Dolphins by Separation Head foraging.

September 17:

4:32 pm Zillion PWS Dolphins by Kanish Bay!

8:15 am 75 – 100 PWS Dolphins by Race Point in Discovery Pass.

8:30 am Large Groups of PWS Dolphins spread out from Chatham Point to Kanish Bay.

11 am Somewhere between 500 to 1,000 PWS Dolphins and maybe even more of them Southbound and spread out from Kanish Bay to Chatham Point to Nodales Channel – They’re right across the Strait and it’s amazing!!

1:19 pm 200 PWS Dolphins around Kanish Bay

3:20 pm 300 or so PWS Dolphins by Kanish Bay.

5:38 pm Hundreds of PWS Dolphins in Brown’s Bay.

September 15:

See note below..I missed a show… (forwarded by) Jacquie Nevinger, Brown’s Bay

Dolphins like a thousand putting on a show slaughtering herring in front of your motor home @ 5.25 to 6.25 and gulls down stream eating what is left.

Harry

9:40 am Humpback Whale by fishing hump off Cape Mudge, soon after found close to Shelter Point Reef heading towards the lighthouse. Lots of krill in the water.

Day: Lots of Dall’s Porpoise in Bute Inlet foraging.

September 18:

5:15 – 7 pm Saw a few groups of Harbour Porpoises – 5 groups of 2 – 5 each on the ferry to Comox. (no they were not "on" the ferry). They were spread out over the course of the ferry ride.

Day: Several small groups of Dall’s Porpoise in Bute Inlet. 2 to 4 in each group.

9:15 am Some Dall’s Porpoise by Dent Rapids.