The 14th of September brought a lot of excitement. G Clan had made their return to Johnstone Strait, met up with the A34s, and filled the waters with voices not heard in quite some time. So, it was only natural to hope that some of the previous day’s magic would carry over into the 15th, as well.
Calls were already coming through Strider in the early hours of the morning, continuing until around 6:30am. After a few hours of silence, the A34s were back on the hydrophone, followed just minutes later by G12 calls. The visitors were still here!
There had already been some action elsewhere that morning. Alex reported the T028Bs and T146D hunting around the Plumpers Sea Lion Rock, where it looked as though they had caught a sea lion, until a humpback intervened! The Bigg’s soon disappeared into a nearby pass. An elephant seal was also spotted off Donegal corner. Quite the morning around the Plumpers.
Farther south, Megan had the A42s around Marina Island just after 10am. They reached the end of Marina Reef before turning back north…around the same time the A25s were reported south of Penn Island. Their paths eventually crossed near Centre Rock around 12:40pm, where some lovely socializing took place before both families later turned south into Sutil Channel.
Back to the main characters of today’s story: just before noon, the A62s and some of the G12s were making their way into the Reserve. Heavy echolocation soon arrived on Strider, followed by a quick rub at Main Rubbing Beach just after noon. A few minutes later, the action shifted over to Strider, where some of the G12s and A62s made the most of their time together, culminating in a ~30 min rub with chuffs, bubbles, echolocation and lots of calls, while dolphins also joined the crowd. There was plenty of surface action too, including one particularly impressive move that could only really be described as a cartwheel.
After the rub, G12 and A34 calls bounced between Strider and Critical Point as the groups spread west through the Strait. Several soon popped up on the Cracroft Point camera, lingering and foraging near the entry to Blackney Pass before continuing west. By 3:40pm, the whales were reported to be in Weynton Passage.
A final report of A34 calls on Foster hydrophone in Queen Charlotte Strait around 5:30pm brought the day to a close, aside from a few humpback whups later in the night. Two days of G Clan in the Strait, though? No complaints! It was also a very special day because finally some Harlequin ducks passed by in front of the lab! Safe to say, a little of yesterday’s magic had indeed carried over.
