01 May 2007, Cetaceanlab reports

Well if this first day of May is any indication of what lies ahead, then this will be a fabulous season. It started for us in the dark, close to midnight, a few faint A5 Resident Orca calls on the hydrophone station in Whale Channel. The calls continued for 45 minutes fairly faint. Just as the tide changed to a flood the calls faded and we assumed the whales must have turned and taken advantage of the free ride the flow the water now provided. The next morning at 9am we could hear very faint calls once again in Whale Channel. The calls were getting closer and closer and soon we could determine that we were listening to A5 and A1 calls. At the same time we received an email from Coast Guard and they reported 18 orcas near the top end of Grenville Channel the day before. They were able to take some pictures which we would take a look at later. For now we focused on the acoustic information as this group of whales moved south in Whale Channel, hoping we would soon hear calls on the Home Station. So far lots of A5 calls, then a series of N47-A1 calls, we were so excited as this would mean the A30s were in this group!! Then silence, not a single call, Hermann went to the point to look, I stayed inside hoping to hear even a resting call. Oddly enough after 15 minutes that is exactly what I did hear, one resting call, then an explosion of calls, all on the Home Station. Next Hermann called on the hand held that I should truly run out to the point. This I did and just in time. Out front there were blows and dorsal fins spread out from us to the little island across the way. We counted at least 15 orcas, vocally we knew we had an A5 group, the A30s and possibly an A4 group as there were definitely a few A4 N4 type calls. Some of the calls were so close, others distant with a beautiful tin like echo that seems to vibrate with the exact rhythm of the water. To our amazement, at the same time as this orca parade, the plumpest male sea lion we have ever seen swam by just a few feet from shore. With out a doubt this male could hear both the calls from these orcas and the blows but showed no interest what so ever. How interesting that they know the difference from a resident to a transient orca so precisely, though for survival purposes this does make sense. This group of orcas continued towards Fawcett, vocal the entire way, then a sudden turn and south they all went. We came back inside to take good look at the pictures sent to us by Coast Guard and sure enough they had the same group yesterday close to Rupert that we were seeing today, the A30s, A42s, A51s plus an A4 group.