No calls but orcas nearby August 7 2020 Orcas: A50s, A23s and A25s As ever, our clarity came after a short waiting game. The A30s made it as far east as Kaizumi Rubbing Beach last night, before turning back to the east and reaching Robson Bight by 12:30am. We heard them catching a bite to eat with some lovely, clear echolocation sounds, and by 1:46am the A23s and A25s had joined them. All groups could distinctly be heard on our Main Rubbing Beach and Critical Point hydrophones, suggesting that they were spread out and intermingled along the length of the Ecological Reserve. Our sleepy yet contented lab assistants monitored their dwindling throughout the night, and we last heard one A30 call faintly off the Main Rubbing Beach at 5am. All orcas had headed east, and stayed out of our range for a good portion of the day. The weather for the past few days has been highly changeable - as many come to expect from the BC coast - and after yesterday’s sunshine we were smothered in rain and wind today, with a southeasterly wind rolling in. Despite the gloomy conditions, we are always very eager to see rain as the forest is rejuvenated, and our water stores replenished. The orcas made a move back from the east around 1:30pm, when we started to hear their lunchtime echolocation clicks around Robson Bight. They travelled west to Kaizumi Rubbing Beach, with a brief rub at 2:29pm, before crossing over Johnstone Strait to Cracroft Point by 3pm. There, we watched them foraging in the impressive riptide for a good few hours! Despite the choppy waters, we could ID the orcas quite well via our remote camera. We identified all of the A25s, A60 from the A23s and A72, A84, A50 and her baby from the A50s. We are certain that all of these families were present, confirmed acoustically by their continued calls. Around 4.30pm, it looked like they were really trying to come into Blackney Pass, but they were pushed back again and again by the strong flooding currents. Either that, or they were just having fun travelling against such a rush of water! They made a few attempts, before riding the tide back to the east past Cracroft Point. We caught some lovely footage of all of them travelling together just after 5pm. The three families made their way back across the Strait to Kaizumi, had another rub at 5:48pm and continued eastward back to Robson Bight. We saw two orcas on our Strider Rubbing Beach camera and were hopeful that we’d be in for another rubbing spectacle, but tonight they decided to carry on their way east - perhaps tired from a long day of back-and-forth and battling currents? All travelled eastward, once again spread out and intermingled by the varying amplitudes of their calls, and we heard what we thought was the last of them at 8:22pm. At 9:05pm, however, we heard one more set of calls and caught sight of a couple of orcas on our Main Rubbing Beach cam, heading east. Ah - the stragglers. “Wait for me!” One imagines them calling... We have now lost the light, so we’ll once again leave it up to our ears to discern the movements of these very resident Northern Residents over night!  Suzie 07 Aug 2020 21:38:31 PDT Distant calls audible. August 6 2020 A30s, A23s A25s, HB, PWD It never ceases to amaze how a straight forward orca day becomes complicated and long regardless. August 6 began with the A30s and A5s in Blackfish Sound. It took them until 2:39am before they moved on to Queen Charlotte Strait and their calls disappeared. Not in any particular hurry it seems but something urged them on. Hours would pass before there were any reports about their whereabouts. At 10:20am word came that there were yet to be identified orcas off Malcolm Point foraging. Just a few. By 11:49am the general trend was eastward. A61 may have been spotted further east just before this. Noon passed and the majority of the whales had yet to cross Bere Point on Malcolm Island. Then the big news! That there were at least 25 orcas together heading east off Bere Point. Just after 3pm a group was seen heading east in Blackfish Sound on the Swanson Island side and before long the A30s were in our view traveling in two groups, enough perhaps for both matrilines to be present. They all cleared our view by 3:23pm and continued on toward Johnstone Strait. Happy campers! Relaxed, breaching, vocalising they reached Johnstone Strait, paused and began to mill, pacing back and forth in front of Cracroft Point. We guessed they might have been waiting. Sure enough just before 4pm the A5s (the A23s and A25s) showed up in Blackney Pass from Blackfish Sound. The A30s became excited off Cracroft Point anticipating their arrival. The A5s were out of view by 4:09pm and well on their way to the A30s. The whales reorganised themselves and everyone headed east toward the Reserve . The A5s paused for a rub at Kaizumi at 5:04pm. Their calls were loud and close for a while. They were well on their way by 5:23pm. They passed Robson Bight in favour of heading to the beaches. At 7:02pm we could see orcas on the remote Strider Rubbing Beach camera. They had arrived!! And they were not going to go anywhere until after a very long rub both at Strider and Main Rubbing Beaches. While orcas stayed at Strider others went east to the Main Beach at 7:36pm and began a rub there. The whales continued to divide their attention between the two beaches until at least 8pm. Then there was a breakaway group who ventured back towards Robson Bight. However, rubbing still continued past 9pm. But by now it was too difficult to see anything on the cameras and we went back to relying on the hydrophones. We were still hearing mostly distant calls past 10pm on the Main Rubbing Beach system. A quick check a while later and we noticed that calls were being registered on the Kaizumi spectrogram display as well. That A30 group who had ceased rubbing and gone west to the Bight were now further along but not far enough for the Cracroft system to fully pick up their calls. We think they may have turned back east just after Kaizumi. Meanwhile, the others were very distant on the Main Rubbing beach hydrophone. Have they gone east? Are the others following? So much for this seemingly straightforward day, complications and question in the end after all. Time will tell.  OrcaLab 07 Aug 2020 00:55:06 PDT