12-5-11 Middle of The Night Concert Goer

2:30 a.m. Monday, December 5th
(This is a re-post. The audio clips now work.)

...no visuals at 2:30 a.m. when the whales woke me up...

...thank goodness I slept through the first 1 & 1/2 hours of their concert, because they continued until almost 6 a.m.!

...they were on both Orca Sound and Lime Kiln hydrophones...most often you can potentially figure out a direction based on volume, but this time they first appeared on both hydrophones at just about the same time...

...then they got a bit louder on Lime Kiln with echolocation clicks and the accompaniment of ship noise...listen to how their calls are echoing in the channels...




...they began to fade off and get louder on Orca Sound Hps...
...then louder on Lime Kiln...
...it continued back and forth, like this, for a long time...
...then they seemed to pick a direction and head up island.
...I kept going outside to try to hear blows...even though it was flat/calm I couldn't hear any...




...J and K calls and I'll guess that Onyx L-87 was with them...
...then the calls faded off Lime Kiln and only could be heard on Orca Sound...

...there had been ships passing through, on and off during the night and the whales' calls continued...
...then as the calls faded off Orca Sound and with an approaching ship that was at about 5:55a.m. I continued listening but heard no more calls...

...I've seen them in the summer come through Baynes Channel and into Haro Strait...spread out - some going up and others going down - some coming across toward the light and others staying far offshore...then eventually picking a direction...

...I wonder if that's what they did this time...I need some night vision binos for the next middle of the night encounter!

...their concert lasted 5 hours...

...and just like any late night concert goer...I then went to sleep!

...I heard that on Monday afternoon, while flying from Victoria to Vancouver, Mark spotted whales just south of Pt. Roberts! - so, they did go north!!