Daily Summary for August 28, 2019: Orcas in the Bight and rubbing in the Reserve! It was another beautiful day at OrcaLab! After hearing A30s in the Johnstone Strait at 9:00pm last night, they became very chatty and moved farther into the Bight. While the vocals continued in the Bight, we heard some A5 calls in Blackfish Sound at 9:34pm. Shortly before 10pm, we heard possible G-clan calls in Blackfish Sound before the calls stopped entirely in that area at 9:57pm. Meanwhile, the calls in the Bight were becoming more clear and frequent despite there being lots of boat noise. At 10:03pm we also could hear G-clan calls in the Bight, which was interesting - they mixed up with the A25 calls really nicely! About half an hour later we heard echolocation in the Bight and presumed the orcas were going to head east into the Reserve. Indeed, calls were getting more distant in the Bight and we started to hear them in the Reserve at 10:53pm. We continued to hear calls until about 3:00am. At 4:00am, we began to hear A30 and A5 calls back in the Bight. The calls were echoey and slightly haunting. They continued to vocalize in the Bight until 5:26am when there was a short burst of echolocation before it went silent. At 7:00am, we got a report from Megan and Shari that there were calls at Cracroft Point and that a group of 7+ orcas, one of them being a male, were heading towards Blackney Pass. Unfortunately, the conditions were very foggy and we couldn’t see anything more than a few meters from the lab, but we were able to hear blows outside at 7:24am moving north through the Pass. There were no calls until 7:47am when suddenly there were loud calls on Local Left and in Blackfish Sound! We heard the A25s, A30s, and possibly the I4s. We think it was a meeting of the groups just on the cusp of Blackfish Sound and Blackney Pass. Not too long after those groups passed through, we heard blows at Hump of Compton, leading us to believe that the A42s were trailing behind, possibly traveling with a G-clan and were going to meet up with the A30s, A25s and possibly the I4s in Blackfish Sound. We continued to have distant calls in Blackfish Sound until 9:30am. Then, at 9:44am, we got a report from the Ocean Magic that there were orca heading west at Donegal Head and another report that there were orca at Egeria Shoal. We didn’t hear anything again until 10:09am, when we heard A5 calls in Blackfish Sound. At 10:27am, we got a report from Shari that the orca were spread out between Egeria Shoal and the Plumpers and were heading down Blackfish Sound. We then heard A1 along with A5 calls in Blackfish Sound at 10:28am and later I15 calls at 10:48am. The orcas in Blackfish Sound were very excited about something and chatted continuously. Finally, the orcas made their way down through Blackfish Sound and emerged in the north entrance of Blackney Pass at 11:27am. The visibility was still pretty bad, but we were able to identify the A25s, A30s and I15s through their vocals on Local Left! They traveled quickly south through the Pass and had cleared by 11:49am. After that, the calls continued on Cracroft Point. At 1:00pm, we heard very faint and brief calls in the Bight, while there were still vocals in CP. Later, at 1:22pm, we were able to locate a group on the CP camera heading west while favouring the Vancouver Island side. At 1:30pm, we got a report from Bill that the orcas were approaching Turn Point and at 2:29pm, we got another report from Bill that there were Bigg’s at Beaver Cove. At 2:31pm, we got a report from Megan that the residents were between Bauza and Beaver Cove. The calls continued on CP until 2:44pm, when we started to hear some distant calls in the Bight as well! We continued to hear faint A5 calls on CP and faint A30 calls in the Bight for a while until we got some distant I4 calls at 3:56pm! The distant calls continued on CP and in the Bight until 4:37pm when it went silent. At 4:40pm, we got a report from the Ambient Light that a group was traveling east along the Vancouver Island shore. At 4:43pm we got a report from Megan that there were 15+ blows in two groups on the Vancouver Island side heading east away from little Kaikash. At 4:44pm, we got another report from Megan that the lead group had 3 blows and the 2nd group had at least 12 blows if not more. At 4:46pm, we were able to locate them on the CP camera, even though they were still quite distant. We continued to follow them on the CP camera, but there were no vocalizations until 5:18pm, when we heard very, very faint calls in the background. We eventually lost them on the CP camera due to the distance. We finally got calls again in the Bight at 5:54pm! At 6:25pm, we found the orca foraging on the Robson Bight camera. About twenty minutes later, we saw them on the Rubbing Beach camera. They began to vocalize and we also heard some echolocation. We were so happy to see the orcas on the camera foraging and playing and best of all…rubbing on our underwater camera!!! Since the group was so close to shore, we also got some amazing vocals! After the rubbing action, the group split into two and one turned west back into the Bight and the other headed east, although they may have turned around and headed west, too. At 7:34pm, we had echoing calls in the Bight, which were coming closer every second! We could seem them clearly on the Robson Bight camera where it looked like they were foraging. The group in the Bight was spread out and stayed in the area for about 15 minutes before continuing on west. We continued to hear calls in the Bight until 8:19pm. At 8:20pm, we got a report from the Prince of Whales that the orca were slowly heading west at the Boundary and were in a fairly spread out group with I76 and I4 possibly in the lead. At 8:23pm, we spotted the orca at Izumi Rock together with the Prince of Whales zodiac on the CP camera. We finally started hearing distant calls on the CP hydrophone at 8:33pm. The calls continued on and off until 9:02pm. What a day, that’s all folks! Orcalab 28 Aug 2019 23:01:56 PDT