Oh Canada!

The view from Moresby Floating Camp on Haida Gwaii

To wrap up the loose ends from 2014 I am finally getting around to writing about the wildlife we saw when we visited the west coast of Canada. We toured around Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands) and managed to see most of Vancouver Island too. We were incredibly lucky in that we hit most of the big scores in terms of animal spotting. I realise that lists are sometimes dull and boring but I'm sticking them in here anyway!

Birds

• Tufted puffin

  

  Tufted puffin ((Fratercula cirrhata) around Haida Gwaii

• Ancient murrelet
• Pigeon guillemot
• Belted kingfisher
• Loon
• Bald eagle
• Raven
• Chickadee
• Rhinoceros auklet
• Sandhill crane
• Semi-pilated plover
• Turkey vulture
• Blue heron
• Steller's jay

  

  Bald eagle - Haliaeetus leucocephalus

• Sandpiper
• Shearwater
• Barred owl
• White winged scoter
• Wood duck
• Sap sucker
• American Robin

Yes, we saw a huge variety of birds and spent a great deal of time trying to get half decent photographs of them. Of course the most iconic one is perhaps the bald eagle, of which we saw many as we made our way around both islands. There was one particular creek on Haida Gwaii where we stopped for lunch which was jam packed with adult and juvenile eagles, some flying very closely past us. One of the memorable species was the ancient murrelet, which had a frantic and slightly ineffectual flapping flight using their stubby wings whenever the boat got too near. Haida Gwaii has the largest breeding colony of ancient murrelets in the world don't you know.

One of the birds we had a particularly hard time trying to photograph was Steller's Jay, and on one occasion following one with the camera led us to a very well camoflaged, sleeping, barred owl!

Mammals

• Humpback whale

  

  Pacific White Sided Dolphin - Lagenorhynchus obliquidens

• Sitka black tailed deer
• Haida Gwaii black bear
• Squirrel (various)
• Pacific harbour seal
• Steller sea lion
• Bats
• Killer whale
• Pacific white sided dolphin
• Grizzly bear
• Californian sea lion
• Racoon

We spent a lot of our time in the lead up to going to Canada hoping that we'd see bears and whales, and we were definitely not disappointed! Shortly after we had arrived on Haida Gwaii a black bear lolloped across the road in front of our bus. The grizzly tour that we went on in Campbell River  provided us with spectacular viewings of humpback whales, a pod of killer whales, pods of pacific white sided dolphin and of course the beautiful grizzlies. We managed to see five bears in total on the tour, two female and cub pairs and one lone individual, and all turned up just shortly after we had climbed into the hide!

Grizzly bears - Ursus arctos horribilis

The mother bears looked very lean but were obviously doing well as the cubs were one and two years old respectively. They came so close to where we were watching them but didn't pay much mind. They skirted the icy blue glacier river and one mother even dived in attempting to catch a salmon.

What a amazing unforgettable day that was! When we were nearing the end of our holiday we booked on a whale watching tour in Victoria and were also very lucky to catch a couple of big humpbacks breaching out of the water. There are different theories as to why humpbacks perfom this behaviour ranging from social displays of dominance, playing, dislodging parasites or to stun prey. Humpbacks are mysticete whales meaning they have baleen plates in their mouths instead of teeth which they use to filter feed on small crustaceans and fish. They are generally solitary animals but the males are well known for their haunting and complex songs produced to attract a female during the breeding season.

Humpback whale Megaptera novaeangliae

Other behaviour we observed while on the inside passage ferry were tail and fin slapping by two different individuals, which was great to see.  Tail slapping, or lobtailing as it is often called, creates a sound that can be heard for several hundred meters underwater, it may be a form of communication or feeding method to encourage frightened fish to school together to make them easier to catch.

Humpback tail fluke patterns and notches can be used to identify individual whales

Fish, amphibians and invertebrates

Sunfish Mola mola

• Sunfish
• Banana slug
• Sculpin
• Purple or Ochre starfish
• Northern kelp crab
• Fried egg jellyfish
• Grasshopper
• Isopods
• Mossy and Black Katy Chitons
• Carabid ground beetles
• Tussock moth caterpillar
• Western red backed salamander
• By-the-wind sailor jellyfish

One of the weirdest things we encountered was a sunfish, a giant meter and a half laterally flattened silvery grey creature with huge oar-like dorsal and anal fins. It is apparently the heaviest bony fish in the world reaching weights of 1000kg. They mainly eat jellyfish and are very slow moving and a result can end up with a lot of hangers-on in the form of parasitic species (and they can be troubled by as many as 40 different ones!), which we observed on ours! Sunfish sometimes come to the surface for a clean, and allow birds to eat parasites from them, at the surface they can also take advantage of the warmer temperature and thermally recharge before they dive.

Mossy chiton Mopalia muscosa

It wouldn't be a Mosspig blog without some mention of inverts so I'd like to highlight the chitons we found on Botanical Beach at Port Renfrew. These are molluscs of the polyplacophora class which have 8 overlapping parts to their shell made of calcium carbonate, which enables them to fit very snugly against intertidal rocks to lock in moisture and avoid becoming dislodged by the waves. Like snails, chitons have rasping tongues called the radula, which are covered in ordered rows of tiny teeth. These are used to scrape algae from rocks on which the chiton feeds. A surprising thing however, is that chiton are the only animals that are able to tip their radular teeth with a compound called magnetite which is the hardest material made by a living organism! There are chitons present on Scottish rocky beaches of course but I have never seen them as big as the ones in BC. There is also a really weird story in Haida culture regarding chitons and their involvement in the creation of man which is worth a read.

Tussock moth caterpillar Lophocampa maculata

Banana slug - Ariolimax columbianus

One of my favourite 'underdog' spottings was the humble banana slug. They are present in North America's Pacific coastal coniferous forests, but the ones we saw in British Columbia are an isolated population. They are very important as they are detrivores, which means they feed on decaying vegetation, animal droppings and fungal fruiting bodies which enables recycling of nutrients and a clean and healthy forest. They are also a tasty snack for some birds and mammals, and I think they are very charismatic!



Of course I can't end a post about British Columbia without mentioning salmon. There are many different species in Canadian waters including Sockeye, Coho, Chum, Pink and Chinook. They all start life in interior rivers, migrating out to sea where they feed and grow, and then return as adults to spawn in their natal river. The return of the salmon is a huge and important event for the bears who after a summer of eating fruits, nuts and scavenging carcasses, can gorge on the glut of salmon biomass in the fall. Bears and other carnivores that hunt the salmon enrich the local ecosystem by transporting nutrient-rich flesh onto the land and into the forests. There valuable phosphorus, carbon, sulphur and nitrogen and be broken down and taken up by plants and trees, as well as being transported downstream to estuaries where it can support a wide variety of invertebrate and birdlife. Mon the salmon!

Sockeye mural in Prince Rupert

In conclusion I thoroughly recommend exploring British Columbia and especially Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island if you ever get the chance, it is a beautiful area bursting with amazing creatures as well as fantastic scenery.