No orcas present. Sorry, just as I posted the humpback stopped - classic! OrcaLab 16 Sep 2020 21:11:21 PDT Superb sounds!! Beautiful, beautiful humpback singing in Blackfish Sound. OrcaLab 16 Sep 2020 20:46:01 PDT September 15 2020: A23s, Humpback: Argonaut, Sea Lions One of the joys of the OrcaLab system is that you can listen to our hydrophones no matter where you are in the world and former assistants who were unable to come to Canada this year due to Covid are still able to play a part! Whether it is Tomoko and Momoko listening in Japan and helping out with the acoustic identifications in the early hours of the Lab’s morning; or TJ in Mexico tuning in from the dog shelter where she works or the beach during after hours; or Karien and Bianca in Europe; or Emily and Alicia in the States; or Pippa on her road trip listening while snuggled with Moss in her car; or more Dylan in Vancouver and Suzie in Port Hardy, everyone (including many not mentioned) feel in step with what is happening. Social media really helps. So whether events like the humpback in Blackfish Sound vocal from 1:21am for just 10 minutes, or the humpback at 5:09am who vocalised beautifully for almost the next hour off Robson Bight, or the brief A5 calls and rubbing sounds at Kaizumi in the afternoon from 2:36pm to 2:41pm, the window we get into the lives of these whales can be so immediate and even intimate - a world normally closed to us all. Very happy we get to share this with an appreciative world-wide audience too. This horrible fire-smoke fog has reduced the visual world incredibly. We did manage to see and identify Argonaut in the Pass at 1:15pm. (Is he and Inukshuk the consistent “singers”) Day, however, has pretty much become night, with listening rather than looking, used primarily for clues about the whales. It helps, of course, if the whales co-operate and are vocal. Not always the case these days. The A5s have been so very quiet that they have not been very helpful to our cause. However, there is a great network of observers too. Scott from Prince of Whales was out and about on this choppy, smoggy day, and helped us out with what the A23s were doing in Johnstone Strait. He reported that the A23s at 11:45am that he saw A43 and A69 spread out in the Strait heading east just south of Blinkhorn Peninsula. Conditions were very rough so Scotty didn’t go very far. James on the Grizzly Girl found the orcas off Blinkhorn at approximately 3:15pm. [Remember we had heard them at 2:36pm at Kaizumi which is closer to Bight so after sometime after that the A23s must have turned back west.] Scott took his cue from James and found the westing A23s off Bauza Islets a short while later after James’ report. The conditions were calmer and the whales were spread out all the way to Weynton Passage: A60 by Weynton Passage, A43 and A109 by Bauza Islet. He last saw them at 4:05pm. The rest of the afternoon and evening were quiet. The vocal humpbacks were waiting for the early morning hours once more.  OrcaLab 16 Sep 2020 13:16:21 PDT Humpback whale Argonaut has been in Blackney Pass for most of the morning. It looks like he's finding food as there is also a-lot of birds around! Watch live now! https://www.explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base Megan  16 Sep 2020 13:13:22 PDT