Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Yesterday morning we encountered the B7s for the first time in our research area. However, the morning started with a report from Marven Robinson about Orcas just south of Hartley Bay. He was able to take pictures of the whales as they were travelling towards Grenville Channel. It turned out that it was the T69 group of transient Orcas. At the time of the report we were on the water trying to take ID pictures of humpback whales as another Orca report came in via VHF radio. This time a group was reported just west off Fin Island, apparently heading south. We wasted no time and travelled towards them. It was a beautiful calm, sunny morning on the water. We found the whales just west off Fin Island. We dropped our hydrophone in the water and listened to their calls. Our first impression was "Offshores", and as we did not recognize the individual dorsal fins of the whales we more and more convinced ourselves to the Offshore theory. The Orcas travelled slowly towards Otter Channel and we would have never figured out which whales we really were looking at if Graeme Ellis would not have shown up in the "Roller Bay". Minutes before he arrived on the scene we heard calls on the hydrophone that sounded like those from a B,C,D group. We were totally puzzled until Graeme identified the whales we were looking at as the B7s. We still don't know how we could have mistaken their calls with those of Offshores when we first saw them other then that we were very excited and focused more on the beauty of their presence, then their calls. It is however a very good reminder for us that it is not easy to identify a family of Orcas after 8 years of not actually seeing them. With family members passing on and new members born the making of the B7 matriline has changed dramatically over the last decade. Nevertheless it was beautiful to see the B7s and hopefully the next time we'll know better......
Cetacealab