No calls but orcas nearby The orcas are going east in Johnstone Strait. We did find them on the CP cam. https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-cracroft-point-surface Great waves right now in this winter storm! OrcaLab 17 Jan 2020 16:28:07 PST Superb sounds!! The winter Gs have arrived! Susie began to hear calls a short while ago off the entrance to Blackney Pass in Johnstone Strait. Trying right now to find them on the cameras. OrcaLab 17 Jan 2020 16:17:42 PST Distant calls audible. We hear calls in the Johnstone Strait!! Not sure who it is yet but keep on listening! Quin 10 Jan 2020 11:11:21 PST No orcas present. Good news! We've had a break in the weather so our team have managed to replace batteries at three of our hydrophone stations. Critical Point, Cracroft Point and Parson Island are now back into the mix and able to stream live at www.orca-live.net Orcalab 09 Jan 2020 09:26:25 PST No orcas present. Good news, everyone! Our remote cameras are streaming again at www.explore.org so you can enjoy the sea lions once more. We are still experiencing problems with the hydrophones so unfortunately the live stream at www.orca-live.net is still affected, but we hope to resolve this soon. Stay tuned! Orcalab 07 Jan 2020 09:09:38 PST Performing maintenance Happy New Year everyone! We are experiencing some technical issues compounded by the stormy weather of late. Hopefully we will get back on track before long. Wishing everyone a healthy and safe year ahead. OrcaLab 01 Jan 2020 09:02:54 PST No calls but orcas nearby We see 5-7 orca blows in Johnstone Strait on our remote camera at Cracroft Point. No calls yet but we're listening out! https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-cracroft-point-surface Suzie 15 Dec 2019 10:02:04 PST Distant calls audible. We hear beautiful calls on CRPT! Claire 30 Nov 2019 03:33:59 PST Can't believe it is almost the end of November. The weather has turned cold (- temperatures) and the water lines have frozen and we have had to dip into the stored reserves - no worries - the stars are out in force with the clear skies, taking their turn from the new moon lighting up the night! Salt water baths are the ticket, in the dark, in the cold, under that amazing, wondrous sky. Daytime has been just as good with the snow covered mountains of Vancouver Island, frost on the ground and sunny, sunny, clear skies. Not hard at all - just more socks and as Megan would say "more jumpers" too. Claire and Jérémie composed the following summary for the 23rd-26th: Summary for November 23 to 26 2019 Bigg’s, A42s, A34s, Humpbacks The last few days have been pretty quiet on Hanson Island but not completely silent. On the 25th, we heard brief Bigg’s calls at 3:40pm in Johnstone Strait on our hydrophone located in the Robson Bight. At 8:15pm, we heard distant calls again on our Cracroft Point hydrophone. The orcas were vocal a bit longer this time and we believe they were Bigg’s but boat noise increased by 8:26pm and we stopped hearing them after that. That same day, we had a report that the A42s were traveling North from the west side of Cortes Island into Calm Channel. Another report indicated that the A34s (minus the A62s) were in Douglas Channel, headed North, on the 24th. Thanks Jenny Rietz for sharing the reports with us! On the 26th, Claire was woken up by a humpback song at 1:07am. What a lovely surprise to hear beautiful “woos” again! She first heard him on the Robson Bight hydrophone and eventually moving to our Cracroft Point hydrophone by 1:14am. The song was distant though and it is possible that there were 2 humpbacks there! Later in the day, the sea lions were in great numbers on their favourite haul-out on the Hanson Island shore in Blackney Pass. Our remote camera is streaming live again on explore.org and we took great pleasure watching them living their sea lion life. We even saw a pup suckling up close! We’re planning to install the microphone soon but in the meantime we enjoy hearing them growl with our own ears directly from the lab! This afternoon, Paul and Helena came back from Alert Bay with Mark. There will be some great improvement of the main house ceiling soon! And we’ll also work on the maintenance of our remote stations power supplies. OrcaLab 29 Nov 2019 22:51:27 PST Performing maintenance Hi again, everyone, the changes have been made, but in order to hear the live stream, you will need to clear the cache on your browser. It now works on phones, too!! Many THANKS to JSStream, Seiji Inagaki, and Jeremie Collado for making this great improvement! Paul 27 Nov 2019 07:51:06 PST Performing maintenance Hello everyone, we are making changes to our system for streaming audio, so will be down for a little while. We'll let you know when we're back! OL crew 27 Nov 2019 07:09:57 PST A tenderness moment on the Sea Lion Rock camera! Watch a Steller sea lion nursing her pup live at https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-steller-sea-lion-haulout Claire 26 Nov 2019 12:45:22 PST Superb sounds!! A humpback whale is singing in Johnstone Strait on the CP hydrophone. Claire 26 Nov 2019 01:25:04 PST Distant calls audible. Brief orca calls on our hydrophone in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve (CRPT) possibly transients, tune in! Jeremie 25 Nov 2019 15:59:32 PST Summary for November 22 2019 Bigg’s The day started with another amazing sunrise, with nuances from yellow to pink painted in the sky. And like the last few days, the sea was calm, so were its inhabitants. Jérémie went to help Mike in Telegraph Cove for a few hours and on their way back, with the tide changing the weather changed too. The south eastern winds started to blow and the rain was back by midday. There were no sea lions on Sea Lion Rock today, maybe they are getting used to the new camera stand over there. By 5:23pm, we were surprised to hear calls on our Parson Island hydrophone, even more surprised to be hesitant about who those calls belonged to. First, we thought a humpback whale was having a fairly unique recital, but when we noticed more than one individual at 5:39 pm, followed by sounds similar to echolocation at 5:41 pm, we corrected our thinking, Bigg’s orcas! The calls were beautiful and unique, it almost felt like there was some imitation of humpbacks whistles and sometimes even Resident calls. The Bigg’s were getting closer to Parson Island and made beautiful calls at 6:03pm. They travelled further into Blackney Pass as they reached our local left hydrophone by 6:34pm, and stayed around for an hour and a half calling continually. Was there a sea lion hunt going on? Unfortunately, it was completely dark and choppy out there so we were not able to see or even hear any blows outside the lab. The Bigg’s were very vocal and close to the hydrophone between 6:50pm and 7:43pm. Then, they eventually headed south again, passing very close to our Parson Island hydrophone at 8:00pm. The group of orcas travelled into Johnstone Strait and headed east, possibly along the Cracroft Island shore towards our hydrophone located in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. Their calls were sporadic but with a few close calls at 11:40pm and 12:48am on the morning of the 23rd. We last heard them at 2:48am! It had been a week since we last heard orca calls on our hydrophones. So today was an amazing day, listening to these incredible Bigg’s calls for more than 8 hours! OrcaLab 23 Nov 2019 19:11:33 PST Summary for November 20, 21 2019 The last couple of days have been pretty sunny and chilling at OrcaLab. We are still scanning the calm sea for any kind of blows, but despite the pleasant sunny weather, it really feels like we have entered a new season. Without the humpbacks and orcas around all the time, our attention is more and more focused on birds and sea lions. Mergansers and harlequin ducks are common visitors as well as the great blue heron and bald eagles watching for any food opportunities. We could see and hear the sea lions as usual, 10 hauled out on Parson Island shore and 31 on one of their favorite spots, Sea Lion Rock. Speaking of which, it is time to put the Sea Lion Rock camera back in place! And in order to do so we spent the day of the 20th to think about a plan and prepare the gear and material for the next day. On the 21st, Claire heard a very brief humpback call at 2:30am and then another one at 5am but as soon as she entered the lab, the whale stayed silent. With the amazing morning light, Matchu and Mike from Double Bay, came to help Paul, Claire and Jérémie to set the new Sea Lion Rock camera stand, a big thick piece of log, that will now hold the camera at its very end. This was the inspiration of Matchu now necessary after the original camera metal stand was literally destroyed when some of the 2000 pound sea lions leaned on it. Later on, after an intense and physical effort, the log was set in place and the camera back on a live stream! It took almost the full day but this was a great job done. There is still work to do over there (set microphone back in, level the camera, connect the underwater camera... but this is another story for another day. OrcaLab 23 Nov 2019 18:45:49 PST Superb sounds!! Amazing Bigg's orcas in Blackney Pass right now. OrcaLab 22 Nov 2019 18:51:18 PST Orcas near mics. Listen to these lovely humpback calls on the Parson Island hydrophone 🐋 Claire 22 Nov 2019 17:45:20 PST Summary for November 19 2019 We were greeted into this sunny day by vocal sea lions hauled out on their favourite rocks on Hanson Island. The sun was very welcome by our solar panels recharging the batteries after a few days of bad weather forcing us to use the generator. We decided to spend most of this beautiful day processing wood for the winter to come. At 11:30am, Claire was looking for humpback blows from the lab deck when she saw a weird looking seal swimming near the June Cove mooring. As she looked through the scope, she realized it was not a seal but a sea otter! She grabbed her camera instantly and took a few shots to share with the team. The sea otter only surfaced a few times while travelling north and quickly cleared our view. Sea otters are a rare sight here in Blackney Pass. According to Oceana, they are foragers, mostly eating hard-shelled invertebrates such as sea urchins. By keeping the population of kelp-grazing sea urchins to a minimum, sea otters are vital to the health and stability of the kelp forest, and in turn, all the species that depend on kelp forests for survival. OrcaLab 20 Nov 2019 22:38:58 PST Summary for November 18 2019 Humpbacks - Claw, Ripple Today was another quiet day on the hydrophones. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t hear a sound, on the contrary! About 40 sea lions were growling on the Hanson Island rocks and probably as many were hauled out on the Parson Island shore. We also heard a great number of Trumpeter Swans high above Blackney Pass. About 150 of them were flying south at 10am and more followed later in the day. They rest in the Nimpkish River and winter in Courtenay. Mike came to visit us in the morning and brought a new piece to replace the broken mount of our sea lion camera housing. We’re hoping to put the camera back online this week! At 3:54pm, we saw a humpback blow in Parson Bay. A quick look at the dorsal allowed us to identify this one as Claw who we regularly see. A few minutes later, another humpback surfaced mid channel in Blackney Pass, travelling North. Nicole Doe, Director of Operations at MERS, helped us identify her as Ripple from a photograph of her left flank. We are excited to see that not all humpbacks are gone yet! The rest of the day was pretty quiet. With the afternoon rain stopping us from working outside, we decided to get warm inside and bake a yummy banana bread and some roasted autumn veggies. OrcaLab 19 Nov 2019 23:55:36 PST Summary for November 17 2019 T68,T68A, part of T68Bs After yesterday’s stormy weather, today was a pretty calm day on both the sea and the hydrophones. In the early morning light, a harbour seal was slowly waking up on the rocks by our main beach. We saw one humpback blow close to Parson Island at 9am but there was no whale to be seen later in Blackney Pass. Claire sat down with Janie for an intense instagram lesson while Jérémie and Mike (from Double Bay) went to change the battery of our Local Left hydrophone. About 25 sea lions were hauled out on the Hanson Island rocks, 10 were at Parson Island light and 24 were on the Parson Island rocks near Second Bay. At 9:30am we had a report from Jared Towers that orcas were spotted off the Pearse Islands, travelling east. They were Bigg’s orcas, identified as T068, T068A and some of the T068Bs when Jared saw them later at 11am in Johnstone Strait off Kaikash Creek favouring the Vancouver Island side. They continued east and did not visit Blackney Pass. Janie left Hanson Island around midday and the team is now reduced down to Claire and Jérémie who are hoping to meet Janie again and talk more about these amazing giants of the sea who she has been studying up north for many years. At 3pm, we went to Parson Island Rock to check the fuel cell levels and returned by 4pm. Half an hour later, Jared Towers indicated that T068 and others were westbound off the southeast end of Cormorant Island still close the Vancouver Island side. The light came down as early as 5pm. We can feel the days getting shorter now but are really hoping that the whales will continue to visit Blackney Pass a little longer! The night sky was clear and full of stars and Jérémie took a lovely snap of the moonrise behind Harbledown Island at 9:37pm while our hydrophones remained silent for the rest of the night. OrcaLab 18 Nov 2019 23:15:01 PST Summary for November 16 2019 Today was one of those days calling for a hot chocolate and a book by the fire. The wind picked up early morning and it rained all day. But we chose to stay in the lab and spend some time editing videos for the new OrcaLab website (coming soon!) and looking at photos of humpback whales we took earlier this month. Speaking of humpbacks, we did not see a single blow today. They would have been easy to miss in this weather but we got a feeling that some humpbacks have started their migration south. All marine mammals stayed quite discreet in this choppy weather and there was no sound on our hydrophones. But we got to see a fair amount of birds! Two harlequin ducks were feeding in front of the lab and a massive bait ball attracted seagulls and bald eagles into an incredible feeding frenzy at the entrance of White Beach Pass. Orcalab 17 Nov 2019 22:52:29 PST Summary for November 14 2019 A34s, Humpbacks - Backsplash, Bumpy, Meniscus and more After a few hours of silence, the A34s were vocal again on our Cracroft Point hydrophone at 3:05am. At the same time, a humpback was singing on our Parson Island hydrophone. The A34s calls were distant with a few mid range calls at 3:50am and active calls at 4:10am. We stopped hearing them at 4:15am. An hour later, a humpback was vocal in Blackfish Sound for a few minutes. The A34s resumed calling at 7:19am. They were in the entrance of Blackney Pass. We spotted them on our Parson Rock camera at 8:20am and started to scan the horizon from the lab deck, expecting to see black fins coming into our view. But they completely vanished from our hydrophone at about the same time and we did not see them coming through Blackney Pass. A few humpbacks were here though, including Backsplash, Bumpy and Meniscus. We heard the Northern Residents again at 9:17am in Johnstone Strait. Their calls were distant but slowly approaching our hydrophone in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. We heard echolocation sounds and pings at 10:33am and 10:41am before they continued east, clearing our hydrophone’s range. We said farewell to AJ, Lucas and Megan that morning. Megan had been on Hanson Island and Cracroft Point since June and wrote these beautiful words reflecting on her 9th season at OrcaLab: “Today I left Hanson island after 5 months. Suffice to say I’m feeling pretty emotional about it. Oodles and oodles of ridiculous sunsets, mind blowing encounters, new friends, wonderful memories and of course, lessons learned and a rather large amount of images and footage to sift through! For now all I can do is just say thank you. Thank you Paul and Helena for shining a light so bright on this earth, thank you Hanson Island for being the centre of my universe, and most importantly, thank you whales for teaching us all constantly how much more we have to learn.” OrcaLab 15 Nov 2019 20:14:21 PST Summary for November 13 2019 A34s, Humpbacks - Squiggle, Bumpy and more In the soft yellow morning light, we observed six humpback whales in Blackney Pass, including Squiggle and Bumpy foraging near Harbledown Island. About 17 sea lions were hauled out on the shore of Hanson Island. But there was none on their favourite rock so Megan and Lucas took this opportunity to dive and install an underwater camera. Once it’s hooked up, we’re hoping to get some nice footage of sea lion pups or other marine life during the winter! No promises yet - still lots to do, including repairing the sea lion surface camera. lAfter that and before the tide changed, Paul and Jérémie headed to Parson Island for some regular hydrophone maintenance. Meanwhile, AJ was busy stringing wires, plugs and lights around the main house. A productive day for sure. The day was pretty quiet on our hydrophones so we had time to enjoy another gourmet dinner all together, and only at 7:51pm did we hear the sounds of a humpback singing in Blackfish Sound for a few minutes. At 10:29pm, we once again heard the A34s, back from parts unknown, in Johnstone Strait on our Cracroft Point hydrophone. From 11:22pm until 11:55pm, they were between Vancouver Island and Blackney Pass. They seemed to get excited around 11:39pm and then they went silent just after midnight. OrcaLab 15 Nov 2019 20:06:51 PST Orcas near mics. The A34s are back in Johnstone Strait! After travelling in Blackney Pass to the North this afternoon, they have probably gone around Hanson Island through Weynton Passage. We are currently hearing them midrange on our Cracroft Point hydrophone. Claire 15 Nov 2019 19:11:44 PST Orcas are entering Blackney Pass! One big fin is approaching Parson Island south edge Watch Now ! https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base Jeremie 15 Nov 2019 15:12:16 PST Orcas near mics. We heard very vocal orcas on our Parson Island hydrophone a minute ago. Were they the A34s? Tune in now! http://www.orca-live.net Claire 15 Nov 2019 15:04:41 PST Humpback vocalisations from our local hydrophone are slowly waking up the lab. The calls are mid distant but we heard much closer blows from the lab. Listen now ! Jeremie 15 Nov 2019 06:02:18 PST Distant calls audible. After a spell of silence for a few hours in the early morning the A34s are still in the strait. We are currently hearing some distant but excited calls on Parsons island and Cracroft point. Hopefully they will come into Blackney Pass. Megan, Janie and Helena. 14 Nov 2019 08:32:20 PST Superb sounds!! Listen to this humpback singing at the entrance of Blackney Pass while the orcas (likely the A34s) are calling in Johnstone Strait, not too far from the entrance of Blackney Pass! Claire 14 Nov 2019 03:46:14 PST Distant calls audible. The A34s are back into Johnstone Strait ! The calls are sporadic but because we hear them on both Cracroft and Parson Island hydrophones, we can locate the group around Blackney Pass entrance. Jeremie 13 Nov 2019 23:40:53 PST Summary for November 12 2019 Humpbacks - Ridge, Squiggle, Bumpy, Moonstar, Quartz and more A good working day here on Hanson Island! We did not hear a sound on our hydrophones but we sure kept busy. There is a new kitchen door in place and brand new LED lights in the house! Thanks Lucas and AJ! Also lots of workshop cleaning done, wood chopping, video editing and yummy cooking! Team effort at its best. On the ocean front, we saw a lot of humpback whales in the morning. Some were in the Gap while at least 5 were milling and feeding between White Beach Pass and Parson Bay. They were so active and spread out that we didn’t know where to look! As usual, Squiggle and Bumpy were close together. Moonstar and Ridge were also present. But there was another humpback in the lot with an interesting fluke we had not seen before. We definitely wanted to know who this was and scrolled through the MERS ID catalogue to find this whale, without success. We contacted Jackie Hildering who instantly knew that this was Quartz! There were so many new markings on the fluke that we could not believe it at first but when looking just a little closer, we could match it 100% with the old markings. An intensely colourful rainbow pierced the sky to the north of Backney Pass. It was a beautiful day filled with everyone’s positive energies. OrcaLab 13 Nov 2019 21:14:07 PST Summary for November 11 2019 A34s, Humpbacks - Ridge, Moonstar, Bumpy, Cutter Have we already told you about this taste of “déjà vu” we often feel here on Hanson Island? Well, this morning was just like yesterday’s with a vocal humpback on our local hydrophone at 3:34am. Except that there was no boat noise disturbing his song this time and we were delighted to listen properly to his various vocalisations. He continued sporadically after 3:36am while another humpback was singing in Blackfish Sound. We stopped hearing them just before 5am. Later that morning around 10am, we heard the A34s on our Cracroft Point hydrophone in Johnstone Strait. They were distant at first and we believe they were coming back from the west where we last saw them heading to yesterday thanks to our remote camera. At 12:51pm, they were getting closer to our Cracroft Point hydrophone and we heard beautiful and excited close calls until 1:45pm. The weather was rainy and cloudy, which is not ideal for the solar panels producing energy for our remote camera and we were unfortunately not able to use our Cracroft Point camera today to observe this very vocal orca family. They travelled further away from our hydrophone after 1:51pm but continued to call for most of the afternoon. At 3:30pm we spotted 4 familiar humpbacks in Blackney Pass named Moonstar, Ridge, Bumpy and Cutter. The last A34s calls were at 3:57pm. We spent the rest of the day all together around a delicious dinner with our friend Janie from bcwhales.org and AJ who will be working on the main house lighting and electrical to improve our power consumption. OrcaLab 13 Nov 2019 21:10:41 PST A humpback in singing on our Flower island hydrophone. Megan's last night in the lab! 13 Nov 2019 19:53:47 PST Four Humpbacks feeding in front of the lab ! The whales are in line with West Pass, watch now ! https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base?fbclid=IwAR3ZYa_4e0_2zwHVUJLW4KzgA6pu58dcJNZxWorX5P3nIF_h1Sud2RfcGMw Jeremie 12 Nov 2019 09:44:40 PST Summary for November 10 2019 A34s, Humpbacks - Bumpy, Ridge, Moonstar, Backsplash Today started as early as 3am with a vocal humpback on our local hydrophone in Blackney Pass. For the most part, his song was unfortunately covered by the loud noise of boat travelling north in the Pass. At 4:30am, there were still humpback sounds in Blackney Pass and we heard Pacific White-sided dolphins too. The A34s started to call in Johnstone Strait on our Cracroft Point hydrophone at 6am. At the same time, we heard the dolphins again and a humpback in Blackney Pass for about 10 minutes. Another humpback was briefly vocal in Blackfish Sound around 6:38am. We spotted the Pacific White-sided dolphins travelling in front of the Lab and heading south at 8:40am. It was a foggy morning in Johnstone Strait and we could not locate the orcas on our remote Cracroft Point camera but they were still calling, more or less distant. After about half an hour of silence, we heard them close to our hydrophone in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve between 9:08am and 9:12am. We believe they continued east to the Rubbing Beaches, clearing the range of our hydrophone before coming back around 10:09am. They were close to our hydrophone in the Reserve at 10:29am when we heard echolocation sounds and loud calls. The fog had disappeared by then in the Strait and we were able to see four fins foraging just outside the Reserve on our remote camera at 10:49am. They slowly made their way west up Johnstone Strait and we spotted a fin on our Cracroft Point camera at 11:51am. They were close and vocal on our Cracroft Point hydrophone at 11:57am, soon echoing to our Parson Island hydrophone covering the entrance of Blackney Pass. At 12:23pm, we heard independant calls on the Parson Island hydrophone and were expecting them to travel north into the Pass. But they didn’t. The humpbacks Ridge, Bumpy, Backsplash and Moonstar were spotted in Blackney Pass though. We had been gifted with some of the most amazing trap feeding activity since 10:30am, including Moonstar feeding very close to the Hanson Island shore, just south of the lab at 12:52pm! We were able to capture all these incredible moments on our local camera that transmitted the footage live on explore.org for some lucky viewers! The Northern Residents continued to call in Johnstone Strait for a bit and we heard them last at 1:24pm. Later in the afternoon, a humpback made a few sounds on our hydrophone in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. We did not hear a sound after 3:26pm. OrcaLab 11 Nov 2019 20:25:12 PST Summary for November 9 2019 A34s, Bigg’s?, Humpbacks - Claw, Moonstar, Backsplash, Inukshuk, Ridge, Squiggle, ?Domino What a night! After hearing 4 humpbacks sing yesterday evening, we heard 4 others during today’s early hours. The first one started at 12:42am in Johnstone Strait and performed for about an hour. He was followed by a second one at 2:46am in Blackney Pass singing simultaneously with another humpback in the Robson Bight. That one then continued on his own. His calls produced an amazing natural reverberation and continued until 4:09am. We briefly heard the A34s in Johnstone Strait at 5:06am and then again at 6:26am when a fourth humpback started to make squeaky sounds on our local hydrophone! The Northern Residents continued to be vocal on our Cracroft Point hydrophone until 7:39am. By 8:30am, 5 humpbacks were feeding in Blackney Pass at the entrance of White Beach Pass and we identified Claw, Moonstar, Backsplash, Inukshuk and Ridge! 5 out of 5! Yey! At 10am, the A34s resumed on our Cracroft Point hydrophone and we spotted 2 black fins on our remote camera halfway between Cracroft Point and Kaikash Creek on Vancouver Island. They were vocal for most of the day in Johnstone Strait. We watched them head west, favouring the Vancouver Island side. They were just tiny dots on our screen at 10:56am when we lost track of them but we could still hear their calls. They were distant and sporadic with a few excited ones around 12:45pm. The humpback named Claw came close to the lab at 1:35pm and we watched her, Backsplash, Inukshuk and possibly Domino, feeding frenzy in Blackney Pass at 1:41pm. Ten minutes later, the A34s calls became louder on our Cracroft Point hydrophone. As Claire was looking for them on our remote camera, she saw Dall’s porpoises close to the Cracroft Point platform. A black fin, possibly a sprouter, appeared mid strait at 2:24pm in line with Kaikash Creek. He was foraging on his own and we could hear him making N3 calls on our hydrophone. TJ, one of our summer assistants was also looking at the Cracroft Point camera on explore.org a few minutes later and notified us of a small fin heading into Blackney Pass. We all kept our eyes open, scanning the horizon from the lab deck, waiting for them to come in! But at 2:56pm, we spotted 5 fins on the Cracroft Point camera, spread out, in Johnstone Strait towards Telegraph Cove. If anyone came into Blackney, they remained invisible and silent on our local hydrophone! The A34s continued to call sporadically in Johnstone Strait until 3:16pm. From 3:18pm until 3:58pm we heard different calls on our Cracroft Point hydrophone, presumably Bigg’s calls. It wasn’t long before we heard the A34s again for a short time on that same hydrophone: at 5:11pm, they made a few N4s and A12 special calls before going silent except for sporadic N3 calls here and there until 6:33pm. For the past half hour, a humpback was singing a lovely melody composed of whistles, barks, cracks and high pitched violin sounds on our local hydrophone. When he paused, we could hear blows outside, mid channel in line with Harbledown Island. His last notes were at 7pm as we all gathered for a lovely dinner made by chef Megan. OrcaLab 11 Nov 2019 20:20:41 PST Orcas near mics. There are very excited calls at the moment on our Cracroft Point hydrophone, tune in! Claire 11 Nov 2019 13:03:01 PST Distant calls audible. A34s calls are in Johnstone Strait on our hydrophone from Cracroft Point with some faint echo on the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. Jeremie 11 Nov 2019 10:47:01 PST Superb sounds!! Humpback whale vocalizations on our local hydrophone. Jeremie 11 Nov 2019 03:37:54 PST Amazing humpback trap feeding in Blackney Pass! Watch now at https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base Claire 10 Nov 2019 12:47:47 PST Orcas near mics. The A34s are in the Robson Bight Reserve, watch them now! https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-robson-bight Claire 10 Nov 2019 10:41:11 PST Watch humpbacks feeding in Blackney Pass! We identified Bumpy and Ridge so far. https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base Claire 10 Nov 2019 10:17:46 PST Orcas near mics. The A34s are vocal in the Robson Bight. Tune in! Claire 10 Nov 2019 09:19:36 PST Not to confuse with what is happening right now but here is the summary for November 8! A34s, Humpbacks - Bumpy, Squiggle, Claw, Moonstar In the early morning light, 3 familiar humpbacks, named Bumpy, Squiggle and Claw, foraged in Blackney Pass. The sun was not quite shining through but the clouds were impressive: we felt like we were inside a Van Gogh artwork! These humpbacks were later joined by Moonstar and they all voraciously enjoyed the feast of a large baitball at the entrance of White Beach Pass at 12:30pm. At 1:43pm, the A34s were vocal in Johnstone Strait and on our remote camera we eventually saw 2 fins (one male and possibly a sprouter) now travelling east between Blinkhorn and Kaikash Creek at 3:56pm. Their calls remained quite distant for most of the day. A humpback sang in Blackfish Sound from 5:09pm until 6:14pm and the Northern Residents calls faded away by 6:20pm, still very faint on the remote hydrophone located in the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve. The light was already dark by then and rain was pouring in Blackney Pass when we heard loud blows nearby at 6:50pm. We all came out on the deck when 2 humpbacks, possibly 3, surfaced right below the lab! It was impossible to see them but the deep sound of their blows was incredible! We could feel them shaking our bodies like little earthquakes. We were wondering: “why don’t they come that close during the day?” One hour later, a humpback started to sing on our local hydrophone. At 8:42pm, 2 other humpbacks stole the show in Johnstone Strait and performed a beautiful duet until 10pm. OrcaLab 10 Nov 2019 06:31:54 PST Distant calls audible. The A34's are back in the strait. We are currently hearing them midrange on at Cracroft Point with some echoing to RObson Bight. There is also the occasional Humpback call on our local hydrophone and a short time ago some pacific white sided dolphins as well. A busy morning. Megan 10 Nov 2019 06:08:33 PST After a spell of silence, amongst some bad boat noise we once again have a Humpback sining on our local hydrophone. Megan 10 Nov 2019 03:17:57 PST Superb sounds!! A beautiful recital from a humpback whale on our close hydrophone. Jeremie 09 Nov 2019 18:51:48 PST Distant calls audible. Orca on camera at Cracroft Point ! A male or possibly a sprouter is heading east, in line with Kaikash Creek mid channel. Jeremie 09 Nov 2019 14:31:02 PST Watch humpbacks feeding frenzy on OL cam! https://explore.org/livecams/orcas/orcalab-base Claire 09 Nov 2019 13:43:43 PST