It was a wild and wet day at Race Rocks with waves breaking over the jetty and the feeling of the first storm of the season. Even though it rained fairly hard in the morning, there were only sprinkles in the afternoon, as the wind switched from northeast to southeast and then back to north. The barometer kept on its downward slide, started yesterday afternoon until mid-afternoon when it started to climb again. The climb may be short-lived though as the forecast is for more of the same.

There were no vessels noted in the Ecological Reserve today, but at least one came fairly close.

Race Rocks Ecological Reserve is on the edge of a busy shipping lane.

Great Race and the other islets that are not awash in the heavy seas, are almost completely covered with birds and mammals right now. It really is a natural haven.

Mixed species flocks of gull dominated by Thayer’s rest and preen on the east end of Great Race.

With close to 900 seals and sea lions, thousands of gulls, and hundreds of other seabirds, it is surprising that there are still some unoccupied bits of terra firma around the house.

Double-crested Cormorants have significantly increased in number over the last two months.

The tagged Northern Elephant Seal 5850_6967 which I am going to call Gat (the noise he makes and Tag backwards) and his little buddy Flake spent the whole day asleep, pressed up against each other and the back of the boat house.

The animal on the right, Gat will be three years old in January. How old do you think Flake is?

Something that most, but not all of the Elephant Seals have here, is extremely white mucous coming out of their noses. They are such amazing divers and spend so much of their life diving, that the default position for their nostrils is closed. Many truly marine birds and even marine iguanas have ways of conserving water and secreting salt through nasal glands and I am curious if Northern Elephant Seals can secrete salt that way? Will report back on my findings about the mystery of the white snot.

White mucus can be seen on the noses of many of the hauled out Elephant Seals.

I had no visitors today and could not go anywhere due to sea conditions but thanks to conference calling, I was able to attend a wonderful meeting at Government House in Victoria. The meeting was about a new initiative to empower youth stewardship in British Columbia, a legacy project of the Lieutenant Governor. Very exciting news will be shared in November. Yes, you will have to wait.

For outdoor adventure I swept walkways and cleared the marine railway of woody debris and seaweed, adding to the woodpile and enhancing the compost pile with some lovely bull kelp. Otherwise I did the regular maintenance to keep things going.