October 2nd A1s and A5s (acoustics only - no visual - likely A34s and A42s) After the throng of orca on the previous day, October 2nd was a much quieter day. We didn’t hear a peep through the night, until 6.20am when the orcas began to call once more around Cracroft Point. We heard A1 calls first, later interspersed with A5 calls. Their calls were clear and beautiful on Cracroft Point until 8:15am, and although they didn’t pass through Blackney Pass for us to visually identify them, we knew these were the familiar sounds of the A34s and A42s. They continued west, and at 8:56 we received a report from Jim Borrowman that there were about eight orca passing Weynton Island north through Weynton Passage. They either remained silent or stayed just out of range of our hydrophone in Blackfish Sound. At 12:55pm they were reported heading west at Lizard Point. The rest of the day was silent (save for some brief chattering dolphins at 9:15pm) and we had to wonder - had the orca headed out west for good? October 3rd Biggs (acoustics only) We awoke to an hour of the most beautiful humpback vocalizations just after 4am on the 3rd October. The song was captured on our Parson Island hydrophone so the whale was somewhere in east Blackney Pass. There is something magical about listening to these ethereal tones in the stillness of the night, letting your imagination run wild with humpbacks dancing in the darkness. Then! Shattered! A tug approached and the singing stopped. This happens so, so often. If the boat operators only knew what magic might be happening beneath their hulls. The damage is almost always complete and even when the tug has moved off to where it is headed the song lies in tatters and the humpback moves elsewhere too. The day dawned grey with a shifting moods, grey, slightly windy, brighter, rainy. Nothing much happened during the day until a humpback began to call in Blackney Pass at 5:50pm. Looking from the remote sea lion rock camera several sea lions could be seen surrounding a humpback just offshore. The patient, slow humpback allowed the sea lions to play themselves out by lying on the surface and rolling along with their antics. Just before the scene drifted out of view another humpback joined in. The day seemed to belong to the humpbacks. Around 9:30pm yet another (or could it be the same one?) humpback began to call out in Blackney Pass and a short while later another one in Johnstone Strait. By 10pm humpbacks were calling off the entrance to Blackney Pass and Cracroft Point. Then right in the midst of their calls we heard the beginnings of Bigg’s vocalisations off Cracroft Point too. A crazy amount of activity for what had been a rather routine day at times. Before the Bigg’s calls gradually became more distant by 10:22pm a humpback was heard again in Blackfish Sound at 10:13pm. The Bigg’s may have been headed west. Apparently, a fairly large sized group had been seen in the lower Johnstone Strait very slowly headed west the day before. Perhaps and maybe they had finally made enough progress to get this far. This event signalled the end of our day. October 4th 2019: A34s,A5s (?A42s) With no activity during the night sleep was a welcomed option. The day, however, became busy with plans to do some much needed maintenance on some of the sites. Quin,Megan, Suzie and Paul all went off in the Sonic to make the rounds. After listening to some chatter on the VHF radio about eastbound orcas just west of Donegal Head Helena decided to head to the Lab and begin a recording. About 15 minutes passed before the first distant A34 calls were heard at 1:08pm. They were pretty vocal but always distant with only an occasional call sounding clearer and closer. Training the remote cameras on the western edges of Blackfish Sound and Weynton Passage area did not offer any immediate clues as to their exact location. Everything remained distant. The current was not due to flood until 4pm so the orcas may have not felt encouraged to move against the flow. Finally, at 2:28pm a very distant but tall fin looked to be heading into Weynton Pass. But it became obvious at 3:50pm that the whales had not actually moved far from their original positions. A humpback in Blackney Pass provided some relief from straining to hear and see distant orcas by calling between 4:35pm and 4:48pm. Then at 5:30pm came the change. The A34 calls had disappeared and we assumed correctly they had finally headed into Weynton Pass. But then A5 calls were now evident in Blackfish Sound. Finally at 6:17pm the long awaited A34 “arrived” in Johnstone Strait. Going with the flooding tide the A34s made it to the area off the entrance to Blackney Pass an hour later. The A5s were in Johnstone Strait by 7:20pm and following the A34s lead they too moved eastward on reaching the Strait. The A5s passed the entrance to Blackney around 8:20pm. Not to be outdone a humpback in Blackfish Sound chimed in around the same time. The calls of the A34s, as they approached Robson Bight, became very clear by 8:42pm By 9:04pm we were listening to a mix of A34s and A5s as they continued to move east in the Strait with the A34s maintaining their lead the whole time. As the A5s got closer to Robson Bight the A34s slipped closer to the Main Rubbing Beach at 10:42pm. No real rubs were heard but at times the A34s were seemingly quite close. The A5s possibly arrived at the Main Beach area by 11:08pm. Then there was a definite shift. The A34 calls on the Main beach hydrophone grew increasingly fainter as they turned and headed back. For a while, between 11:35pm and 11:52 distant calls could be heard on both the Robson Bight hydrophone and the Main Rubbing Beach. Just after midnight our orca listening became seriously compromised by an amazing humpback in Blackney Pass near Parson Island. Putting the westbound orcas on “hold” we gave our total attention to the deserving humpback. More in the next update!  OrcaLab 05 Oct 2019 20:40:01 PST