J Pod Returns to the Orcasound Lab Hydrophone

Posted on 2023-03-272023-04-02 by Val Veirs Posted in Network news, Orcasound lab

A J Pod orca northbound (3/25/23) at Orcasound Lab on San Juan Island, WA

After too many months to count, J pod returned in force vocalizing at Orcasound.lab for more than an hour on Saturday, March 25, starting about 8:30 am PST. The passby featured bouts of echolocation clicks and many, many vocalizations. Here is a plot of 2 minutes of hydrophone signals at about 8:45 am.

Recording of the signals displayed above. Note the echolocation bouts.

On Saturday morning, when it seemed that the passby had some reasonable chance of continuing, a notification went out to all those on our Orcasound Slack general channel. A report also went in via the WhaleAlert app. Scott and Alisa at Orca Network quickly activated and notifications went out to many individuals.

As the passby progressed, the number of online listeners grew and grew.

The 800 total listeners over the bout likely sets an Orcasound record. (Report thanks to Oya Muslu)

I hope this fabulous passby and recording sets the stage for many more this spring. Orcasound hydrophones are being replaced and upgraded after a winter of hydrophone decay and destruction and a new node on San Juan Channel is likely in the next few months.

6 thoughts on “J Pod Returns to the Orcasound Lab Hydrophone”

2023-03-28 at 09:14 Reply
Cathy says:

I am so grateful for your email notifications alerting us to orca vocalizations. They are heaven to my ears!
2023-08-23 at 08:56 Reply
Candice says:

Curious, are you going to release the vocals from August 17th?
Thanks!
1. 2024-01-17 at 11:43 Reply
  Scott Veirs says:
  
  Hi Candice,
  
  Sorry for the delay! We’re still working out a best way to share high-value portions of the archived live audio streams.
  
  Here is the 30-minute bout for 8/17/2023 (1632-1652 Pacific time; 39MB!). Note other metadata in the folder/file names.
  
  Please let us know if/how you use the audio data! And if you plan on commercial used, please contact us at info@orcasound.net
2024-08-30 at 20:42 Reply
Jerry Blakefield says:

Hi Scott,
I have taken in interest in the BARN project that Dave Bonnett and Jim Henderson are working on. My interest is in trying to understand the sensitivity needed to have a useful recording system. I would really like to get sound pressure levels at the hydrophones for various recording locations and incidents from OrcaSound.
Thank you for any help
Jerry Blakefield
1. 2024-09-04 at 14:27 Reply
  Scott Veirs says:
  
  Hi Jerry! Thank you for contributing to the BARN project and helping develop lower-cost hydrophones for listening to orca sounds.
  
  TLDR; most Orcasound network locations receive broadband (20-20,000 Hz) sound pressure levels of about 95-100 dB re 1 microPa when the ambient noise levels are low (no motorized vessels nearby, or geophony). When vessels pass, those received levels go up ~20 dB re 1 microPa. Broadband source levels of SRKW calls are ~155 dB re 1 microPa @ 1m for the same bandwidth (20-20,000 Hz)
  
  For more details see these [Beam Reach publications](http://beamreach.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page#Published_or_public_results), starting with the 2nd and 3rd link to NOAA reports —
  
  Source level of calls from Southern resident killer whales (Val Veirs and Scott Veirs, 2005)
  Ambient noise in killer whale critical habitat (Val Veirs and Scott Veirs, 2006-2009)
  
  And maybe also our 2016 PeerJ paper — Ship noise extends to frequencies used for echolocation by endangered killer whales.
  1. 2024-09-05 at 05:14 Reply
    Jerry Blakefield says:
    
    Thank you Scott. I will dig into the references..