Wildlife in Desolation Sound

Mother mergansers and their long line of ducklings trailing fretfully in her wake are a common sight in the early summer in Desolation Sound. These handsome looking birds sport rusty red ‘mohawks’, and are easily distinguishable and abundant all along the coast. They are especially spotted amongst rocky islets or fishing as a family in protected bays like our serene launch site in Okeover Inlet.

Larger than an average duck and preferring more whitewater, surf scoters are commonly seen in spring and late summer in Desolation Sound, bobbing up and down in the wind and waves. They are predominantly black, powerful looking ducks that have a large, swollen bill with distinct orange and black markings. Scoters will come close to shore to feed on mussels and other small shellfish that they tear from underwater rocks with their strong bills.

Desolation Sound is one of the top places on the coast to view the enigmatic marbled murrelet. These tiny brown ducks are usually heard before they’re seen, making their high pitched chirping calls as they emerge from below the surface, often with tiny fish in their bills. Murrelets are designed more for flying underwater than in the air, in fact they are closely related to the puffins off the west coast! They will often disappear in front of your eyes, diving for 30 seconds or more and reappearing suddenly just as quickly as they left.

One of the most distinctive looking birds sighted all over Desolation Sound and the BC coast is the noble looking great blue heron. While they are becoming increasingly vulnerable across British Columbia, GBHs are commonly seen standing silently along the coast here. Gazing into shallow water, they strike with sudden speed and snatch small fish with their rapier-like bills.

Cormorants are black diving birds that – when they’re not fishing – stand upright on a rock on the shore or floating logs or breakwaters in large groups, their wings outstretched to dry. Unlike most seabirds their wings are not waterproof! This allows them to dive deeper in pursuit of fish. Huge colonies of Brandt’s cormorant live all year on Major Rock, just north of Lund. They can often be seen in Desolation Sound flying with a distinctive profile, low over the water, in single file.

The cackle of the belted kingfisher as it flits nervously from tree to tree can sometimes startle a kayaker searching for peace and quiet! These medium sized, handsome birds have blue and white markings and are very notably antisocial. They barely seem to tolerate each other let alone the presence of humans. If you can get close enough to watch one fish, however, it is an impressive spectacle. Kingfishers hover momentarily in the air before literally throwing themselves at the water again and again, corralling small fish from side to side before snatching them up in their bills and returning swiftly to their branch to feed.

One species of bird that you will most likely hear before you see it is the pileated woodpecker (and it’s close relatives the downy woodpecker and red-breasted sap sucker). All three types of woodpecker are found in the islands and forests of Desolation Sound. All three species are known for tapping out a nest or searching for bugs and the sap of conifer trees with their incredibly strong beaks.

Paddling in Desolation Sound with a nice low tide, you are likely to sooner or later come face to face with group of sunbathing harbour seals, camouflaged against the rocks with various colours of speckled black and grey and white.

Seals gather in large colonies at certain locations throughout Desolation Sound, wherever the fishing is easy and the shoreline is accommodating. Two popular areas are the cliffs on the western shore of Kinghorn Island, and Major Rock north of Lund, where seals and interesting bird life can be observed all year.

If you are paddling in Desolation Sound in the spring or fall, you will likely be treated to sight – and sound, and smell – of rafts of overwintering sea lions, in addition to the plentiful population of seals. The most commonly sighted sea lion is the California Sea Lion, which can often be seen hauled out on rocks, log booms and wharves. They also rest in the water with their flippers in the air to minimise heat loss, and are often seen surging through the water in search of fish. California Sea Lions have a very distinctive ‘barking’ call, which gives their presence away long before they are sighted onl and. This species mostly heads south to large rookeries in California and Baja during the summer months, but some small colonies do remain year round.

The harbour porpoise and Dall’s porpoise are occasionally spotted both individually and in small pods of up to 10-12, silently surfacing five or six times before diving and staying submerged for 2-6 minutes at once. The two species of porpoise are difficult to tell apart, but to keen observers the Dall’s porpoise will show a white dash on the dorsal fin, and appear slightly larger than the harbour variety.

The Pacific white-sided dolphin is usually seen in groups of up to 50 members, and occasionally in larger pods of several hundred or more! When in larger groups like this usually the first thing noticed by paddlers is a huge mass of ‘splashing’ or choppy water making it’s way towards you on the ocean. These dolphins are easily identified by their white and grey markings on the underside and at the tip of their dorsal fin. They are also a much larger size than porpoises, and their ‘flamboyant’ behaviour includes constant breaches and a playful nature.

The most abundant sea star species is the ochre star (or purple sea star) which can be found in huge clusters throughout the intertidal zone. These 5-rayed stars range in colour from purple to pink to pale orange, with a very hard spiny body, feeding on mussels, barnacles, limpets and snails, which they often digest  by pushing their stomach outside their body until the prey is broken down enough to retreat inside their ‘shell’.

Another conspicuous sea star  is the multi armed (up to 24 in each individual) sunflower star, which is both the largest (arm radius up to 46 cm) and most predatory sea star found in Desolation Sound. These sea stars are soft-skinned and malleable, moving up to 110m and hour in its hunt for sea urchins, sea cucumbers, clams, sand dollars and even other sea stars!

Other common sea stars found in the upper intertidal zone and seen by kayakers include the leather star, which mottled brown and orange and has a smooth leathery surface (and also, apparently, smells like garlic if you are brave enough to put your face close enough to smell it!) and the pretty vermillion star which tends to drop deeper in the intertidal zone as the waters warm in the summer months.

Related to sea stars biologically if not in looks is the spiny California sea cucumber, a long orange and red cucumber-shaped animal covered with soft ‘spines’ on three sides, and a muscular ‘foot’ on the underside with hundreds of tube-like feet that enable it to grip tightly to rocks and crawl slowly in search of food. Due to the relative absence of its main predator, the sunflower star, sea cucumbers have been seen in great abundance in Desolation Sound in recent years.

What from a small distance looks to be a wall of glistening algae is often actually hundreds and thousands of small aggregating anemones clinging to exposed, low intertidal rocks. This species actually gets it colour by eating single celled algae that remains alive inside the body of the anemone. The colourful tentacles will retract when touched with your finger, and even give off a slight ‘sting’ in the form of a noticeable numbing anaesthetic, which it uses to paralyze and consume small fish and crustaceans!

Pacific oysters are  the most abundant and most conspicuous shellfish on the coast, as well as the most profitable. These large, strong oysters with a fluted white shell were introduced from Japan in the early 20th century for their size, taste and rate of production that dwarfs that of the native olympia oyster which is has largely supplanted. Okeover and Malaspina Inlets are the centre of a vast aquaculture network that specializes in oyster farming right up and down the coast, with many small and large shellfish ‘farms’ visible in protected bays and inlets for importation all over the world.

Some of the most common and edible species of clam that is harvested in this area today include the Pacific littleneck clam, manila clam, and butter clam, all found abundantly and co-existing together on our beaches, harvested at low tide with rakes and garden forks! As the tide drops, watch for the telltale jets of water that shoot out of holes in the rocky sand, indicating the presence of a clam just below the surface.

There is also a small but lucrative commercial geoduck fishery in Desolation Sound. This clam is the largest intertidal clam in the world, with a huge, long siphon that cannot physically retract into the shell, giving an entirely comical appearance. These clams are only harvested recreationally at the lowest tides and can bury themselves at the slightest tremor on the surface up to 3 feet deep, making them very difficult to capture!

The most common larger crab found in these waters – found from rocky intertidal zones to floating kelp forests – is the shield-backed kelp crab, also known as the spider crab, with an angular, almost triangle shaped carapace and long slender legs reminiscent of a spider hiding amongst the floating seaweed – which is the main part of its diet – or lurking just beneath the surface on rocks and jetties searching for barnacles and other small crustaceans.

If you are launching your kayak at our Okeover Inlet location at low tide, be sure to look down amongst the rocks and the sand and notice the thousands – probably tens of thousands – of tiny, colourful shore crabs scuttling along the ground both above and below the tide, feasting on barnacles and other miniscule sea creatures.

When paddling in Desolation Sound in late summer, before the first big fall rains that fill the valleys and rivers to bursting point, the waters are constantly disturbed by the splash and bright flash of salmon waiting for the right conditions to enter their ancestral spawning grounds to complete one of the greatest migratory and biological cycles in the natural world.

While some species  do have a spring spawning cycle, all five salmon found in these waters – chinook, chum, coho, pink and sockeye – return in great numbers to spawn in late summer and fall in streams and rivers all over the BC coast.

Another popular sport and commercial fish found in Desolation Sound is the rockfish – consisting of many separate sub-species – a large , extremely long-lived fish that often live to ages of over 100 years! To help protect these fish from overfishing in this area, a designated Rockfish Conservation Area exists throughout much of Desolation Sound.