Superb sounds!! August 3 2020: A30 (A50s A54s), A5s (A23s, A25s), T36,T36Bs, PWD One of the greatest pleasures of living and working at OrcaLab is being in the Lab by oneself during the early hours of the day. Outside dark and just a single conservative light to illuminate the working space inside. If and when lucky, calls and sounds of the whales pierce this envelope and carry your imagination out to their ocean world beyond. Last night was like this. Aware that the A30s in Blackfish Sound were beginning to shift back to Blackney Pass, as their calls passed from the Flower Island to Parson Island hydrophones, went outside to listen to their blows across the calm waters. Their steadily slow progress belied their excitement on nearing the entrance of Blackney Pass. What were they excited about this time? Had the A5s (the A23s and A25s) gone around the other way? At 10:25pm, when the whales had been exclusively calling in Blackfish Sound, a group of orcas were heard blowing off Double Bay. Time a plenty for this group to head through Weynton Pass and reenter Johnstone Strait via this route. Did they make it fast enough to be there in the Strait by the time the A30s negotiated their way through the final leg of Blackney Pass? The distant A5 calls in the Strait were compelling. Or did they just accompany the A30s as they had done all day? One final burst of excitement happened around 12:40am. The whales all headed east and the Johnstone Strait hydrophones picked up their calls, first and briefly Cracroft Point, then Kaizumi and Critical Point. Did not seem as if anyone was very close to any of these sources so perhaps the whales favoured mid strait for the first part of their journey. With Kaizumi totally engulfed by boat noise, Critical Point became the main source just in time as the whales now quickly moved closer to Vancouver Island and approached Robson Bight. From 1:36am to 2:19am the A30s were actually in the Bight. Beautiful, beautiful calls! Magic! As they slipped past the eastern headland of the Bight their calls could also be heard on the Main Rubbing beach system. By 2:27am all the whales were past Critical Point. Some already closer to the rubbing beaches. By 2:45am calls were close. The night had been one of constant movement all the way from Blackfish Sound, through Blackney Pass and now Johnstone Strait to the Ecological Reserve. Quite the journey sitting alone in the Lab being carried along by these amazing sounds. Their sojourn at the rubbing beaches lasted until 3:12am after which they collected themselves for the journey back to the west. Once again Critical Point did its job of registering their return to the Bight. As the whales trekked further west the A30s could be heard on the Kaizumi Beach hydrophone. As they crossed the width of the Strait Cracroft Point marked their progress. From some of the whales it was back to the entrance of Blackney Pass by 5:30am. The lead group did not hesitate but carried on into the Pass itself. The first blows could be heard at 5:37am. It was misty, it was foggy, it was drizzly so not really great visibility. It took a while longer for all the whales to move through. While the first group (part of the A30s) was passing the Lab there were still A30 and A5 groups in the Strait. Just before 6am there were once again beautiful calls as these last groups made it to Blackney Pass. During and after the passage of the orca families the calls shifted to Flower Island in Blackfish Sound until 6:21am. The whales left Blackfish pretty quickly for Queen Charlotte Strait where they spent the majority of the day. Our day picked up with the report of orcas off Donegal Head in the afternoon at 3:22pm. There had also been a report of orcas also at Pulteney headed toward the Port McNeill direction at 2:27pm. We had about an hour before we heard anything from the orcas themselves. At 4:21pm we began to hear A5 and A30 calls in Blackfish Sound. We actually located them on the remote camera by focusing on the cluster of boats following the whales. The whales were still some distance away. Forty-three minutes later they started to come into our view. A54 was perhaps first and moving quickly, baby beside her. Others followed and we could see by looking at the attitude of the boaters and kayakers to expect someone closer to the Hanson shore. Sure enough A60, Bend and others came “around” the corner. A61 was there following A85 and her young one a little further out. The light was lovely. The mists and fog of earlier had burned off replaced by sunny skies and warm breezes. It took them just to 5:40pm before they all cleared our view. They were set on Johnstone Strait and once reaching there they halted their quest eastwards by slowing down and milling off Cracroft Point, perhaps giving time to sort out their intentions. A group of Bigg’s (T36 with the T36Bs), first seen off Telegraph Cove at 5:39pm, were oKaikash Creek when they turned around after realising the proximity of the Resident orcas. By 6:08pm the A30s and A5s were decidedly heading east. Some came closer to Kaizumi Beach on Vancouver Island. From there the calls grew more and more distant until their approach to Robson Bight. By 8pm, they were definitely in the Bight. Calls and echo location became dramatically closer over the next hour. Main Rubbing Beach picked up the calls of the whales headed east from Robson Bight. By 8:48pm the whales arrived at Strider beach to begin a long involved rub. Our camera control became unworkable so we had to be satisfied with watching the scene from a single position. Still pretty good as there were lots of whales. By 9:30pm whales were still at Strider, and around this time we were hearing consistent calls on the Main Rubbing Beach. These calls persisted for a good while, the orcas seemed to be spread out along the Reserve as we could still hear distant calls on Critical Point until just after 10:30pm. The orcas have been very chatty as they have travelled, seemingly further offshore. At time of posting - 11pm - we are still hearing distant A30 calls up and down the length of Johnstone Strait, between Main Rubbing Beach and Kaizumi. Either they are hugely spread out, or the range of our new digital hydrophones is exceptional! We wait to see which direction they’ll pick as the night draws on, watched over by a rising full moon.  Orcalab 03 Aug 2020 23:00:30 PDT Orcas near mics. We have the A30's and A5's currently rubbing at strider rubbing beach! Watch live on explore main stream.  Orcalab  03 Aug 2020 21:01:30 PDT Superb sounds!! The A30's and A5;s are in the bight, lovely close calls!  Orcalab  03 Aug 2020 20:10:20 PDT Superb sounds!! The whales are back! Heading east in Blackfish Sound. Calls are picking up, nice to listen to for sure. OrcaLab 03 Aug 2020 16:34:44 PDT re the latest summary. It should read A109 or Fern as the young whale on the underwater camera. OrcaLab 03 Aug 2020 08:18:41 PDT Superb sounds!! Close calls on Main Rubbing Beach! Orcalab 03 Aug 2020 02:56:25 PDT Superb sounds!! The A30s have made it to the Bight, such nice calls - eliminated most boat noise ! OrcaLab 03 Aug 2020 02:00:40 PDT