| 
 |
August 23 2024 Northern Residents: A34s (still minus the A62s),A50s, A54s, A23s. A25s, [A42s plus A94 in the Salish Sea] Humpbacks: in Blackney Pass, Quartz, Hunter; at CP, Freckles and baby, Ridge For this day the orcas divided themselves along family lines, A1 and A5. They started off in the same place but soon decided on different priorities. At 12:11am we heard the start of their return to Blackfish Sound from the west. Especially between 1 and 2am the strength of their calls and echolocation grew. By 2:25am, only the A5 calls were heard in Blackney Pass. The division had been made. The A23s and A25s of the A5 pod would proceed to Johnstone Strait leaving the A50s, A54s and A34s (all of the A1 pod) in Blackfish. The A1 calls ceased at 2:58am as those whales returned to Queen Charlotte Strait and the A5s continued to move through the entrance to Blackney Pass and into Johnstone Strait. From 3am, the two A5 families, the A23s and A25s moved out into the Strait and eastward. The A25s would arrive off Robson Bight by 5am and the A23s off Strider just before 7am. At Kaizumi beach an A25 rub began at 6:57am only to end at 7:20am. Calls on Kaizumi ended at 7:29am. The day was completely socked in, probably the worst foggy day ever. Paul was anxious to get to town so he could help Raffi, who had been visiting for a couple of days, meet his flight out of Port Hardy. The fog just did not seem to want to budge. Plans were revised, as they always are in these situations, and expectations lowered. When the fog eventually lifted in the afternoon Paul was able to take Raffi to Telegraph Cove and go on and complete his modified tasks in Alert Bay and Port McNeill. Meanwhile tracking whales was pretty much reduced to listening. CP could not see the other side of the Strait. We could not see any of Blackney Pass beyond our immediate bay. In the fog, the A23s and A25s, ended their travels east, turned and went west. Just before 9am Seasmoke found one orca off Telegraph Cove but could not see others. At 9:10am five others were noticed going past Telegraph Cove. If you have been reading these reports, you may guess that the orcas were soon headed to Beaver Cove, often a destination and turning point.. A60 was actually seen first and then both family groups soon after. This time they did not spend a lot of time in Beaver Cove. A VHF radio report at 10:06am indicated that the two groups were heading mid strait back to the east. The nightÕs excursions seemed to have caught up with the A23s who formed a resting line opposite Blinkhorn. Blows on the Hanson Island side suggested that the two families had separated. Indeed, the research vessel the Achiever confirmed seeing the A25s off Hanson IslandÕs Big Bay area at 11:26am. The A50s and A54s, now without the A34s, returned and were first found off of the Plumper Islands on the Weynton Island side around 11:15am. By the time the A25s had reached Big Bay, the A50s and A54s were still in the vicinity of the Plumper Islands. By noon the fog had yet to lift and CP relied on the boats to relay information. The A25s, according to the Achiever, were crossing the Strait. The cross was not completed or was altered (much like PaulÕs revised trip to town!) as Surge ÒpoppedÓ in the fog on his own on the Cracroft Island side. Our attention toggled between what was happening in the Strait and Blackfish Sound where the A50s and A54s had moved east to Dong Chong Bay which is only 11/2 km west of the Lab. This was around 1pm. Forty minutes later they were still there but around 2pm they turned in the opposite direction. The groups in the Strait, before 3pm, began to adjust their intentions too. At 2:45pm the A23s, who had been near the Kaizumi area for a while, got back into a western oriented resting line. The A25s, who were still east of them had entered the Bight already. We could hear them and others could see their blows in the Bight past 4pm. Ridge breached four times while, not only Freckles and baby, looked on but Suzie too, at CP with her friends for a quick visit. The A30 calls resumed at 4:22pm. This continued until 4:35pm. Again, stereo calls continued in Blackfish Sound and Johnstone Strait. from just before 5pm through to 5:16pm. By then the A25s had moved some distance from the Bight along the Vancouver Island shore. The seven fins seen heading west off of Telegraph Cove at 5:38pm belonged to the A23s. By then the A25s were now off Kaikash Creek. Somewhat similarly to the day before, the A54s slipped into Blackney Pass at 5:43pm from the west. There was no urgency in their movement. They milled, foraged, stalled, took a long dive and changed direction. Killing time? Waiting? They eventually left to go back to Blackfish at 6:20pm. By then the A25s had passed the entrance to Blackney, Surely the A54s heard them. Behind the fog, long gone, had been an unseen, unfelt warm, only slightly overcast day. Evening cleared all that away for a beautiful sunset. There were few changes for the A50s and A54s in Blackfish Sound throughout the period of the evening before midnight. For the most part their calls were not close. There was some echolocation so we knew they were altering their positions. Just after 11pm their calls became distant. Their day had been slow, relaxed and they, content to stay in the same general area. Felt like they were conserving energy for something yet to happen.The A5s had shown more inclination to move. Once back to the west of CP they turned again and went east to at least just west of the Bight. Their expressions were lively and loud at times. Finally between 11:35 and midnight their calls became faint. Still in the Strait but now quite distant. They would let us know the next day where they ended up during the night. Perhaps it was the thick fog but the day had a rather pleasant slowness about it. Hampered visually for a good portion of the day we had to leave off the busyness of looking and searching and just listen, very much the same as what we do at night. At night, though the shifts can seem long sometimes, when the orcas call, spaces compress and one feels closer and a part of what is going on. Strange but true.
OrcaLab
24 Aug 2024 21:43:00 PDT |
|
August 22 2024 Northern Residents: A34s (still - the A62s),A50s, A54s, A23s. A25s, [A42s plus A94 in the Salish Sea] Humpbacks: In Blackney Pass, Freckles and baby, Hunter, Quartz, Meniscus; at CP, Freckles and Baby, Magician, Meniscus LetÕs start with a less than pleasant event. Sorry. Zooming ahead to 2pm. The recent familiar orca families had virtually spent the entire night in Queen Charlotte Strait. There had been a brief trip into the Strait at 1:48am followed by a retreat back to Queen Charlotte Strait. Through the morning they journeyed back. But it took a while and it was afternoon before they once again got within range of our hydrophone briefly. When the whales shifted toward the Plumper Islands at the western end of Hanson Island in Weynton Passage they could not be heard any longer. This is when Ocean Magic II reported to Straitwatch that a cruise ship had launched eight or nine zodiacs and that they were following the whales and not respecting the required 200 meter distance. Ocean Magic II took it upon themselves to remind the zodiacs of the regulations over the VHF radio. This is quite an appalling incident and we hope that further action, like contacting the cruise ship company directly, will happen. Apparently the cruise ship launched the boats when at dock in Alert Bay where there are signs clearly posted about the regulations. A lot of effort goes into educating the public and boat operators about respecting the whales. It took a long time before self regulations evolved into guidelines and then eventually the formal regulations. Without those protective regulations there would be many more questionable interactions. A short while later the whales were travelling at speed with the strong flood towards Weynton Island which is located where Weynton Pass meets Johnstone Strait. By now we were getting acoustic clues as to which whales had come back into the Strait. The A34s, A23s, A25s would be the first to make the list. The A54s, more elusive, would remain a question mark. Unlike the other three groups the A54s have no tall male fins. The whereabouts of the A50s also had yet to be determined. By 2:44pm a group of ten orcas, quire spread out, was crossing over to the Vancouver Island shore. The estimate of how many orcas present then grew to 23 as they headed east from Telegraph Cove. The Lab waiting for the orcas with the CP remote camera trained to the west watched two to three humpbacks move about the rip west of CP. Meanwhile, CP, waiting Òdown the lineÓ at Cracroft Point for the orcas to draw near, saw blows tight against the Vancouver Island shore at 3:16pm. Costal 1 confirmed that one group had grouped up and was moving slowly off Blinkhorn. However, around 4pm the boats were saying that the majority of whales had yet to advance very far. The A23s according to the research vessel the Achiever were still off Telegraph Cove.Straitwatch reported that most of the orcas were further west in Beaver Cove. Scotty discovered the missing A50s in Blackfish Sound foraging from Bold Head to Flower Island at 4:15pm. The Lab found that promising! By 4:46pm movement in the Strait was beginning to quicken. CP saw far off blows at Blinkhorn. Not long after Straitwatch reported that the A23s and A34s, who must have come together in Beaver Cove, were now heading east mid strait. Our best clue that the A54s were in the Strait were their defining A30 calls. The other A30 family, the A50s were clearly not involved with the action in the Strait, were in Blackfish SoundÕs acoustic space. The A54s were added to the list. Around 6pm, A5 calls got louder on the Kaizumi system. The Ocean Magic II estimated at 6:03pm that the orcas were travelling twelve knots as they went east. That is very fast! They remarked that, while others headed to Robson Bight, there was a huge spread over two kilometers along the Vancouver Island shoreline. At 6:06pm, a short three minute rub happened at Kaizumi. The loud A54 calls at 6:10pm resulted in another quick rub from 6:13pm to 6:16 pm. Scotty found some of the A54s back at Kaiaksh and mentioned he had seen the A34s earlier. The A50s, meanwhile, had moved a bit further west and were now between Donegal Head and Bold Head. We heard them call and echolocate at 6:24pm. CP was reporting that around ten orcas past Kaizumi on the Vancouver Island side at 6:28pm. Too far to clearly identify. Just before 7pm the calls in Blackfish Sound ceased. Those of the A54s and A34s in the Strait continued. By 7:19pm, the lead orcas were closing in on Critical Point in Robson Bight. That would be as far as these groups would venture. As they pulled away from the Vancouver Island side and into mid strait their calls became fainter. They were occupied in swinging over to the Cracroft Island shore where they would begin to come west. It was closing in on 8pm. At the Lab, the humpback Meniscus who had brushed past close to CP (right under the deck!) came into Blackney Pass and at 8:24pm, following the Hanson Island shoreline surfaced just to the south of the Lab. We could follow his movement as he ever so slightly disturbed the surface creating ripples and small waves. He resurfaced just by our mooring and carried on with a deeper dive toward Burnt Point. The orcas in the Strait were now approaching CP from the Sophia Islands. Each group was three minutes behind the other. The A23s passed first at 8:30pm. The A34s, close together, went by at 8:33pm and the A25s at 8:36pm. CP watched the last of them clear into Blackney Pass at 8:43pm. They came into Blackney on the strong ebb and in the almost dark. They kept the same order as they had shown at CP . They moved forward mid channel as slightly separated families. They were gone 10 minutes after first arriving. They were on their way to the waiting A50s off Bold Head. The list was complete.
OrcaLab
24 Aug 2024 11:37:40 PDT |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment