Distant calls audible. The A34s are back into Johnstone Strait ! The calls are sporadic but because we hear them on both Cracroft and Parson Island hydrophones, we can locate the group around Blackney Pass entrance. Jeremie 13 Nov 2019 23:40:53 PST Summary for November 12 2019 Humpbacks - Ridge, Squiggle, Bumpy, Moonstar, Quartz and more A good working day here on Hanson Island! We did not hear a sound on our hydrophones but we sure kept busy. There is a new kitchen door in place and brand new LED lights in the house! Thanks Lucas and AJ! Also lots of workshop cleaning done, wood chopping, video editing and yummy cooking! Team effort at its best. On the ocean front, we saw a lot of humpback whales in the morning. Some were in the Gap while at least 5 were milling and feeding between White Beach Pass and Parson Bay. They were so active and spread out that we didn’t know where to look! As usual, Squiggle and Bumpy were close together. Moonstar and Ridge were also present. But there was another humpback in the lot with an interesting fluke we had not seen before. We definitely wanted to know who this was and scrolled through the MERS ID catalogue to find this whale, without success. We contacted Jackie Hildering who instantly knew that this was Quartz! There were so many new markings on the fluke that we could not believe it at first but when looking just a little closer, we could match it 100% with the old markings. An intensely colourful rainbow pierced the sky to the north of Backney Pass. It was a beautiful day filled with everyone’s positive energies.  OrcaLab 13 Nov 2019 21:14:07 PST Summary for November 11 2019 A34s, Humpbacks - Ridge, Moonstar, Bumpy, Cutter Have we already told you about this taste of “déjà vu” we often feel here on Hanson Island? Well, this morning was just like yesterday’s with a vocal humpback on our local hydrophone at 3:34am. Except that there was no boat noise disturbing his song this time and we were delighted to listen properly to his various vocalisations. He continued sporadically after 3:36am while another humpback was singing in Blackfish Sound. We stopped hearing them just before 5am. Later that morning around 10am, we heard the A34s on our Cracroft Point hydrophone in Johnstone Strait. They were distant at first and we believe they were coming back from the west where we last saw them heading to yesterday thanks to our remote camera. At 12:51pm, they were getting closer to our Cracroft Point hydrophone and we heard beautiful and excited close calls until 1:45pm. The weather was rainy and cloudy, which is not ideal for the solar panels producing energy for our remote camera and we were unfortunately not able to use our Cracroft Point camera today to observe this very vocal orca family. They travelled further away from our hydrophone after 1:51pm but continued to call for most of the afternoon. At 3:30pm we spotted 4 familiar humpbacks in Blackney Pass named Moonstar, Ridge, Bumpy and Cutter. The last A34s calls were at 3:57pm. We spent the rest of the day all together around a delicious dinner with our friend Janie from bcwhales.org and AJ who will be working on the main house lighting and electrical to improve our power consumption.  OrcaLab 13 Nov 2019 21:10:41 PST A humpback in singing on our Flower island hydrophone.  Megan's last night in the lab! 13 Nov 2019 19:53:47 PST