Superb sounds!! We have begun to hear, after all that boat noise, some whistles and echo location in Blackfish Sound. Perhaps the A50s are still not too far away! Helena 16 Jul 2020 23:29:08 PDT Boat noise Summary for 16 July 2020 Orcas: A50s Humpbacks: Guardian, Stitch, Argonaut Back and forth, back and forth… it has been one of those days. As avid tennis fans, we can’t help but feel that today has been like one long tennis match - watching the same family of orcas cross the lab six times in the space of an afternoon! Wimbledon was cancelled this year, but this felt like the next best thing (albeit a disappointing lack of Roger Federer in Blackney Pass.) The day started like many before it: shrouded in fog! It was a beautiful, calm scene. Paul and Quin headed off early to Parson Island to replace a radio link, with the hope of improving our network connection and speeding things up a little. (I think the jury is still out on that one, it is too soon to tell…) As the bright sun burned through the haze in Blackney Pass, we received an exciting report that around FIFTY orcas were seen yesterday up in Gordon Channel, near Port Hardy. Jared Towers confirmed all of the A4s, G17s, A23s, A25s, A54s, I4s and Andrew Jone saw the I65s earlier.- what an impressive gathering! We hoped very much they would make their way east and we’d be seeing or hearing them before too long. At 10:39am we heard our first calls in Blackfish Sound - faint echolocation and A1 calls. A few minutes later, and those signature “N47” calls of the A30s could be heard, meaning that either the A50s or A54s were close by. Some of our hydrophones struggled as the morning progressed. We are still tweaking the set-up of our new digital array. We lost the A30 calls for a while, and wondered if they had headed into Johnstone Strait, which we could not near as our Critical Point hydrophone was down. At 12:44pm we heard their calls again - slightly closer this time! We waited, patiently, and sure enough the orcas drifted into our view just before 2pm. Our local lab hydrophone is currently down, too, so we are acoustically “blind” right out front, but fortunately we could ID these orcas very easily, as they are well-known. Can you guess? Yep - the A50s! With the presence of A72 and her front-side dorsal nick, A50 and her new baby, and A84 a “sprouting” male - this group of six are one of the most recognizable. They spent about 90 mins cruising through Blackney Pass, and had made their way into Johnstone Strait by 2:20pm where we picked up their vocalizations once more. We thought they might head east to the rubbing beaches, or perhaps west to wait for some more groups… nope - they spent about 30 minutes foraging and then headed straight back into Blackney Pass, this time heading north. They cleared into Blackfish Sound at 3:37pm. Passing number two. We all returned to our daily duties - Helena on the lasagne sauce for tonight’s dinner (always exquisite), Suzie sorting out the myriad of spices we seem to have accumulated and Quin, Paul and Megan setting up our new local lab hydrophone… yet again only 30 minutes passed before the A50s were back in front of the lab, heading south at 4:08pm! They swung so close to our Sea Lion camera and round Licka Point, a favourite trajectory of this matriline. We got some really lovely recordings of them on Parson Island, which will be very useful in our efforts to acoustically distinguish the A50s and A54s. Passing number three. As they came into view on our Cracroft Point remote camera around 4:30pm, they were joined by Guardian the humpback who was also foraging in the rip current. As we tracked the orcas, we caught some lovely shots of Guardian breaching, fluking and rolling with the orcas in the background. There was even a little breach from A50s baby! We lost sight of the A50s in the haze on CP camera, and they had stopped calling. Guardian continued to breach in Johnstone Strait - we counted six in a row alongside many more over the next fifteen minutes! At one point, she breached right as the Alaska Ferry travelled east in the Strait. It was a very poignant scene in the wake of a recent humpback death due to a ferry strike, down in Washington State. Guardian (unharmed) continued to distract our attention as the A50s turned once again, and headed into Blackney Pass at 5:15pm! They must have headed in a lot earlier as they were already nearly clear of our view to the north by the time we spotted them. They were fairly far away but close together, and entered Blackfish Sound at 5:25pm. We decided to eat dinner fairly early, and the lasagne went into the oven at 5:46pm (a very important moment so it, too, gets a time-stamp). As we were laying the table and preparing to feast, we received a report from the Wardens of the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve - on their way back from town at that moment - that there were six or so orcas in Blackfish Sound heading towards the lab, close to the Hanson Island shore. We laughed, plated up our dinner and went to eat in the lab, eyes peeled. Helena saw them on Sea Lion Camera - which can see further into the Sound than we can - and they were so close to Hanson. We had mere minutes to get assembled on the deck at the camera controls, before the A50s passed by us once more for the fifth time today at 6:41pm. It was a magical scene as they cruised by us in a resting line. We captured some beautiful footage on our stills camera, Base Cam and remote Sea Lion Cam. Hopefully you were watching with us! They cleared into Johnstone Strait once more just after 7pm. The fifth passing. We are very grateful that the wardens tipped us off, otherwise we may have missed it whilst stuffing ourselves full of lasagne. We heard their sporadic calls on Parson Island. There were a few calls on the Cracroft Point hydrophone as they neared the Strait. A burst of calls that gained in strength and echo location signalled their turn back into Blackney Pass. We saw them briefly heading back but then they fell silent and we lost sight of them shortly after. We started to wind down for the night, keeping our eyes on the water just in case. At 8:54pm we got a report from Matchu who was at Flower Island at the time, that a group of orcas had just passed him, heading northwest. … a few minutes later we heard A50 calls again in Blackfish Sound. We had missed the sixth passing! So 6-5 to the A50s was the final score as the night came in (and who knows, maybe they have silently passed again as I’ve been writing this!) but it was truly a wonderful day. No sign of the many other groups of whales spotted further west yesterday, but perhaps that story will unfold in tandem with the night… We are now enjoying beautiful humpback vocalizations and breaching sounds in Blackney Pass, tune in with us if you are able!  Suzie 16 Jul 2020 22:38:19 PDT Superb sounds!! Humpback vocalizations and breaching sounds on Parson Island in Blackney Pass! www.orca-live.net/community/ Suzie 16 Jul 2020 22:06:27 PDT No calls but orcas nearby Orcas are in view! At least the A30s are heading our way. Watch with us: https://www.explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base Suzie 16 Jul 2020 13:55:59 PDT Superb sounds!! We have some nice A1 calls and echolocation right now :) Listen with us: www.orca-live.net/community/ Suzie 16 Jul 2020 13:36:17 PDT