Summary for September 10, 2019. I15s, I31s, A42s. We don’t have many nights absent of orcas calling, but last night was an exception. However, it wasn’t completely quiet. Our day started before the sun, as a Humpback began to warm up their vocal chords at 2:48am and eventually broke into song at 3:19am. This beautiful melody continued on our Flower Island hydrophone until 3:40am when it was interrupted and squelched by a passing boat. Before the humpback had finished, we began to hear A5 calls at 3:32am calling from Robson Bight, their calls were quite distant and infrequent. These calls continued for several hours and completely faded into silence just after 7:00am. Not long after that, at 7:12am we began to hear I15 vocalizations ring through our Flower Island hydrophone at close range. Within an hour these calls had begun to fade. We pieced together that the orcas must had taken Weynton Passage into Johnstone Strait as we began to pick up on our Cracroft Point hydrophone at 8:56am. The foggy morning made tracking the residents difficult, but just after 10:00am Megan reported that I76 had been identified easting along the Hanson Island shore while others were easting between Blinkhorn Peninsula and Little Kaikash Creek. At 10:49am we could see black fins emerging from the fog that had engulfed the Strait throughout the morning. We watched as the orcas moved past the entrance to Blackney Pass and made quick time past Cracroft point on their way east. By 11:24am we picked up faint calls on our Robson Bight hydrophone, and waited for them to appear on our cameras. Just after 12:00pm, we finally saw members of the I15s, I35s and A42s on our Robson Bight camera. The I35s could be seen moving on a direct course for the Robson Bight camera. We watched them come closer and closer, and their calls continued to get louder. We were treated to some very clear vocals as the orcas passed by our hydrophone and continued on to the east. The A42s and I15s remained further off shore, but seemed destined to end up at the rubbing beaches past the Bight. Finally at 1:05pm the orcas arrived at the Main Rubbing Beach to have a wild and wonderful time, rubbing and vocalizing throughout. We identified members of the I15s and the A42s. We could hear them releasing air to lower themselves onto the pebbles, and heard the pebbles move as they rubbed. Their calls were loud, clear, excited and exhilarated. There were so many individuals at the beach, we had trouble deciding where to point the camera! Here at the lab, we were beside ourselves as we watched multiple passes on both our above and underwater cameras - it was an incredible afternoon. After this unreal session at the Main Rubbing Beach, the I15s and A42s turned west again and meandered into the Bight shortly after 1:20pm. The episode at the beach wasn’t quite over as by 1:34pm we saw more orcas arriving at the beach! A group of 8 individuals passed by the underwater camera all grouped fairly tight with one another. They appeared to be more individuals from the I15s. They did not stay as long as the previous orcas, and by 1:44pm they had finished at the beach and were aimed back in the direction of the Bight. We followed the groups back to the Bight at around 2:05pm, but as they continued west we only heard and saw them sporadically throughout the afternoon. Then at 3:36pm, we began to hear close calls at Cracroft Point. Shortly after at 4:02pm, Shari reported a male and three small fins moving past the Cracroft Point platform, heading west, with more orca crossing the Johnstone Strait from Kaikash, angling toward Blackney Pass. For the next hour, we had calls on our Cracroft Point, Robson Bight and Parson Island hydrophones. Then finally, at 5:45pm, the A42s and the I35s decided to take to the Pass at speed. They traveled together as they moved north, led by A42 and her little ones A103 and A114. They were very vocal on our OrcaLab hydrophone, and cleared Blackney by 5:56pm. As they left Blackney Pass, we began to hear them on Flower Island and listened to their calls fade away to the North. The lab was quite calm for a short while, thinking we were done with the action of the day, until suddenly, at 7:26pm, we saw more orca entering the Pass from the south! We were caught slightly off guard as we did not hear any calls prior to seeing them in the pass. We had the I16s, I4s and I65s traveling north, all together, mid-channel. As they got closer to the lab they vocalized several times quite clearly on our OrcaLab hydrophone. They cleared Blackney Pass at 7:43pm, a very quick encounter! It was truly an action-packed, vibrant day here at OrcaLab. It is always such a privilege to witness the beauty and joy of the Northern Resident orcas. OrcaLab 11 Sep 2019 08:28:12 PDT