September 20 - 22 2021 It has been six days now since there were Northern Resident orcas in our area! Fall has arrived. There is a chill now in the air but today (September 22) was sunny, a relief from the past few grey days. How great to feel that warmth. The Lab has been busy regardless of the weather. Tom Dakin and Dylan Smyth drove up to help secure the Kaizumi rubbing beach hydrophone cable against the winter storms ahead. A difficult job in difficult conditions. The weather on their arrival was quite windy but predicted to calm down. However, the prediction was tardy and the ocean on the morning of the 21st was still active. The rising tide was not a help and before long Tom and the others helping were getting wet. A nice shower, sauna and lunch awaited their return to the Lab. It was the least we could do! Filling in for the orcas are the sea lions and humpbacks. Ripple and her baby came close to the Lab on the 22nd, supposedly in a hurry to get somewhere else. Over the last couple of days the humpbacks have been vocal but not overly so. For example on the 20th they were vocal at 6:42am (a few dolphins then too) and then not again until 10pm when it sounded as if two humpbacks were involved, one closer, one further away. They managed to carry on till 11:45pm. On the 21st, there were the remnants of an effort (12:46am) that really started the previous evening. But then again nothing much until 9:15pm. This humpback was quite versatile, alternating between melancholy and melody. Boat noise intruded and the calls became infrequent and were eventually more distant by 10:46pm. In the morning of the 22nd, a humpback showed off his vocal acrobatics from 5:53am until 6:41am, There were beautifully echoey calls, from the very low to the very high repeated frequently. This session ended with strange little chirps, possible bubbles and lots of splashes. The same day Ripple and Dapple went by (the 22nd, a sea lion tore into a large salmon in front of the Lab only to have to scare off determined gulls hovering overhead. There are now a lot of sea lions hauled out on the local rocks (more than 60 of them). Their raucous growls are a constant. They are an exercise in making the rocks look comfortable but that does not stop them from being restless whenever someone moves or objects. Quite entertaining though and featured daily now on explore.org https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-steller-sea-lion-haulout Another large salmon became dislodged from its hiding place under the logs in the bay near the house. It shot across the bay. Pretty sure it was a good sized chum, autumn is really here! If there proves to be enough Chum salmon here, perhaps the resident orcas will be enticed to come back, fingers crossed. We miss them! We had a visit from a lone Grizzly bear on the 20th. After last yearÕs saga we are better prepared but we jumped into action taking extra precautions. The tents were brought down,dried and packed away. The camp kitchen was shut down. Everybody was moved indoors, Probably a good idea anyway as the weather has turned away from summer. But it was a bit tricky as Mark has been busy redoing the windows in the upper part of the Lab where two of the sleeping spaces are located. Fortunately, Mark works efficiently and the windows were installed without causing too much discomfort. He is now doing the finishing touches and it looks great. The bear,by the way, seemed for now to be just walking through. LetÕs hope so! We will work on finding some nice pictures tomorrow and post them along with this summary.  OrcaLab 22 Sep 2021 21:00:04 PDT