Category Archives: Class Mammalia

First Elephant Seal Pup of the Season!

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It’s that magical time of year where the Northern Elephant Seals come ashore and give birth! Our first mom is the same female who showed up first last year, Pink Tag 2 (who we affectionately call Bev), who came ashore on December 15th. After several days of being sassy and pregnant she gave birth to a new male pup on December 21st.

Bev seems to have a purposeful strategy showing up and birthing before the other females. Last season Bev showed up almost a month before the other moms, and left before the other moms were even getting ready to birth. By this time her pup was pretty huge and mobile. She gave birth last year on December 22 2020, so pretty much on schedule with what she did last year.

One of the first big hurdles for newborn pups is just figuring out just how to nurse, some pups take days to figure this out, but not this first pup: he was nursing within hours of being born is already looking plumper than when he was born.

Snow and high winds at Race Rocks today

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Snowy Race Rocks from the lighthouse.

Weather:

Well we got the same dump of snow on February 13th that hit Victoria, arriving with some 40-50 knot outflow winds blowing the crunchy snow all over the place. Estimated about 10cm of snow, but due to the high winds it was moving around lots.

Visitors/Traffic:

No visitors in the last week besides the future Eco-Guardians coming out to do some training. The weather has been consistently >30 knots from Febryary 10th onwards.

Ecological Notes:

With the heavy winds and snowfall the California Sea Lion numbers have been reduced, we thought just for a night or two but the numbers haven’t returned as the snow melts and winds die down. We had 1 California on the jetty looking very sick and emaciated; and one on the South side of the lighthouse with a neckband bleeding pretty heavily.

California Sea Lion with a nasty looking neck-band.

The Stellers have come back once the snowfall stopped, but weren’t around during the peak snowfall days.

On February 13th we spotted 4 Southern Resident Orca’s cruising their way around the South side of the lighthouse. Talking with local experts it sounds like it was members of J-pod due to local hydrophone recordings.

Elephant Seal update:

On February 11th another pup was weaned and his mom left. This is our 4th pup to be weaned this season, with one still nursing.

Snuggles got buried into his own little snow bank.

Our last female on the island, Jolene provided a wall to protect her pup from the blasting snowflakes.

Our oldest pup Cheermeister got bit on the head the night of February 7th, and retreated to the front door of the Eco-Guardian house. We thought his bite marks didn’t look that bad despite the amount of blood, but the wound never seemed to clot and may have been much deeper than it initially looked. Cheermeister died the morning of February 11th, and further inspection showed he had 2 deep bites from one of the adult male elephant seals; we assume Jafar the non-Beachmaster hanging out on the island.

Cheermeister post head wound.

The head wound turned out to be fatal. Pretty crazy to see how much damage they can handle, but the wrong bite in the wrong spot can be enough to kill them.

The photos of the seals make them look all cute and cuddly, but they’re actually all over 150kg (330lbs). If it weren’t for the slippery snow he would have been much harder to move.

It’s an interesting thing getting to live in such close proximity to wild animals. You don’t want to interfere in their lives, and sometimes that means watching things that make your stomach churn. Other times things happen and you don’t really know why, and are just left wondering. We are very grateful for our time on Race Rocks, getting to watch these pups be born, grow, and explore the island. Each birth is a celebration of the resiliency of these animals, making their comeback from near extinction.

I love seeing these fat pups slipping around in the snow!

Jellybean and Sebastian have officially ‘podded up’ and are exploring the island together. Too much cuteness.

To offset the sadness of Cheery’s death, here’s a Elephant Seal pup’s tail. They’re possibly the most adorable part of the seal.

February Sunsets lighting up the sky!

Break in Foggy Weather: Census + Pelican!

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, some sun and blue sky
  • Visibility 10-12 NM
  • Wind 20-15 knots W
  • Sea state: fast moving currents, still fairly flat despite wind

The fog horn continued for 20+ hrs each day until today. For most of this week we have had less than 100m visibility, making it impossible to see even a boat passing through race passage or the end of the jetty. At some points, we could barely see the guest house from the main residence! It can be difficult to focus and/or work productively during these long periods of fog, as the fog horn sounds three long high-pitched “beeps” every 45 seconds. More info on the history of Race Rocks foghorns Here!

Visitors: 

  • There have not been any visitors to race rocks since Monday when Greg and a contractor stopped in briefly.
  • There have been 1-2 tour boats in the reserve daily, but we can often hear them before we see them in the fog. The sea lions are easily startled by them because of the limited visibility, and sometimes when the boats emerge from the fog the sea lions run into the water.

Ecological Observations: 

  • The sea lions have officially taken over the island! We have been dutifully repairing the electric fences daily to keep them from damaging the buildings and especially from disrupting the burial cairns.
  • There have been an incredible amount of interesting birds to observe this week, despite the weather. Today we saw a pelican while enjoying the sunshine right from our back porch! This is a new sighting for us at Race Rocks and we were quite ecstatic.
  • On the note of bird sightings, we are hopeful for the installation of a new bird tracking device on Race Rocks sometime soon which will allow us to view migratory birds passing through the reserve as it detects their tracking bands.
  • One of our favorite elephant seals, E103 or “Erica” has returned again. We were happy to see her looking healthy yesterday- she had been hiding behind the piles of sea lions, and we only saw her once we had shooed them to install more electric fencing.
  • Identifying gulls is incredibly difficult. Some of them look the same aside from a slight wing color difference or color of feet determining them as a separate species! We are wondering if the gulls we have been assuming to be non-breeding california gulls are actually thayer’s gulls. Back to the id books!

Census:

  • 96 Stellar sea lions
  • 383 California sea lions
  • 88 Harbour seals
  • 1 Elephant seal
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 52 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 1 Brown Pelican
  • 1 Oregon junco
  • 2 Fox sparrows
  • 15 Savannah sparrows
  • 1 Yellow-rumped warbler
  • 1 Short billed dowitcher
  • 14 Black turnstones
  • 8 Canada geese
  • 320 Glaucous winged gulls
  • 113 California gulls
  • 20 Heerman’s gulls

Students, Whales, Census, Seal!

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Weather:

  • Sky clear and blue. Much less smoke than yesterday (currently 13 wildfires burning in washington state).
  • Visibility 10 NM (visibility reduced due to smoke)
  • Wind 5-10 knots SE
  • Sea state: calm

Visitors:

  • As the students return to the Pearson College campus we are being joined by small groups of first year students to introduce them to race rocks. We have been enjoying showing them around and sharing about the ecology- they ask great questions!
  • Greg has been accompanying these trips as well as MJ
  • Few boats in the reserve now that the long weekend is over. Quite a few whale watching boats following the humpback whales that we have been seeing in the strait.

Ecological Observations: 

  • The sea lion numbers are climbing daily still. There are many more california sea lions than stellars right now.
  • We have been seeing the occasional small group of black turnstones (less than ten) but the large migrating groups have moved on.
  • Yesterday we spotted a short billed dowitcher!
  • Today we were joined by one young elephant seal on the jetty ramp. Unfortunately the sea lions are not the most friendly company and it seems that they have scared it away.
  • We have been seeing groups of cormorants in the reserve, mainly on the south islands and seal rocks.
  • We have been spotting at least 1 humpback per day in the juan de fuca strait

Census: 

  • 1 Elephant seal
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 155 Harbour seals
  • 213 California sea lions
  • 71 Stellar sea lions
  • 395 Gulls (California)
  • 1 Savannah Sparrow
  • 1 humpback whale (!)
  • 4 Canada geese
  • 6 Black turnstones
  • 6 Song sparrows

Successful Sea Lion Rescue!

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Weather:

  • Sky Clear and blue
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 20-25 knots NE
  • Sea state: swells up to one meter
  • Temperature outside: 19.8 C
  • Pressure: 1021 hPa (decreasing)
  • We have been seeing consistent fog in the late evening, lasting for an average of 2 hrs. The fog banks seem to move over us from Port Angeles.

Visitors: 

  • Marine Mammal Rescue and DFO visited yesterday (more on this below).
  • Steady flow of pleasure crafts and whale watching vessels over the long weekend.

Sea Lion Disentanglement: 

  • Yesterday Marine Mammal Rescue along with the support of DFO vessels and staff came to help a sea lion with a plastic packing band stuck around his neck. They were able to successfully dart the sea lion with a tranquilizer injection, remove the band, give him tracking tags on his front flippers, and take a blood sample. When this was done they injected a reversal drug to wake him up and with a little scratch he was back on his way!

Ecological Notes:

  • The seagull chicks have officially flown the coop! Only a few remain and we are able to move around the island again without bothering the nesting birds.
  • This year we have noticed significantly less trash left behind by seagulls than last year. Our best guess is that they had more food available to them this summer, which would also align with observing them regurgitating much more fish that the previous season.
  • The sea lions have been increasing in numbers every day. The new fencing material that Nick and Greg used seems to be working much better than the wire that we tried last year, preventing them from damaging the island infrastructure. We have been letting them rest on the jetty this week but we will soon need to install more fencing in preparation for student visits.
  • Yesterday we found two turnstones which appeared to have been killed by the gulls while we were investigating the area near the codar antenna (SW Great Race Rock).

Census and a Beautiful Day

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Weather: 

  • Visibility 0-10 NM (some intermittent morning/evening fog)
  • Sky clear
  • wind 25-30 knots W
  • Sea state: rippled, whitecaps
  • A steep decline in humidity today helped dry out the island after a bit of rainfall

Neat Fact: The body temperature of seals is very similar to our own! Endothermic like us, they maintain an internal temperature of 36.5-37.5 degrees Celsius.

Marine Traffic/Visitors: 

  • Greg visited today to top up island supplies before the college vessel goes for regular maintenance
  • Not many boats today- around 5 eco-tourism vessels.

Ecological Observations:

  • Elephant seal V173 was not here today. We wonder if she was just stopping for a rest or if she will be back soon.
  • There have been very large groups gulls and also black turnstones migrating through, intermingled with a few surfbirds. There were so many today that we took a photo from the lighthouse in order to count them!
  • The pigeon guillemots seem to be nesting in full force. We have spotted many carrying fish into crevices on the west side of the island near camera five and also the rock walls on the east side.
  • The seagull takeover has seemingly started to ease and moving around the island is becoming easier day by day. The chicks are beginning to be able to escape the attacks of the rival adult gulls by flapping their wings and flying/hopping away.
  • On a slightly…mushier note (stop reading if you get queasy!): Yesterday we removed the gull that was eviscerated on our back porch. We let it sit for a few days to see if an otter would come back for it or if the gulls might take a nibble (neither occurred). We were surprised by the amount of maggots that had grown in only a couple of days, presumably due to the warm and humid weather recently.
  • The sea lion population is increasing every day and they are started to climb onto the main rock. It’s almost time to put up the electric fence or we will have unwelcome house guests!
  • The geese have suddenly left this week (all but 4). Interestingly, earlier in the week we saw a flock of 17.

Census: 

  • 4 Canada geese
  • 985 Seagulls (does not include chicks)
  • 84 Harbour seals
  • 1 Male elephant seal
  • 25 Stellar sea lions
  • 19 California sea lions
  • 88 Pigeon guillemots
  • 2 Bald eagles
  • 1 Humpback whale (in the straight)
  • 1 Brandt’s cormorant
  • 12 Black oystercatchers
  • 143 Black Turnstones
  • 1 Sandpiper ((?) will update with confirmed id!)

 

 

 

A New Arrival

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Today’s Weather Conditions: 

  • Sky overcast
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 15-20 knots W
  • Sea state: calm, fast moving currents today (almost 5 knots)
  • Daily fog in the mornings and often late afternoon as well

Marine Traffic/Island Visitors:

  • No island visitors aside from Greg on Thursday with supplies
  • Quite a few whale watching boats today and yesterday (20+)
  • Not many pleasure crafts passing through the reserve, but many outside of pedder bay (especially yesterday)
  • We saw 3 whale watching boats just outside the reserve circle a small group of orcas and follow them under power into the strong currents earlier this afternoon.

Ecological Observations: 

  • Today we were joined again by elephant seal V173. She was also here in December and again in the late spring when we first arrived. Her left eye is a bit oozy and red, but it seems like it is still functioning properly and she is otherwise looking great! She must have eaten a lot of fish out there- she’s much bigger than the last time we saw her only a few months ago.
  • The seagull chicks have been wandering farther away from the safety of their nesting areas, and we have been seeing quite a few more deceased chicks on the ground all around the island. They are being killed by rival gulls protecting their territory and young. There are a few chicks with injuries from these attacks, such as broken legs or wings.
  • We found an eviscerated gull chick on our back step on Friday afternoon. It looks quite a bit like a chicken does when a mink kills them (head missing), so we wonder if this is the work of a river otter.
  • As mentioned above we observed a few orcas just outside of the reserve earlier today. We have also been seeing humpbacks passing quite far away in the straight.
  • The pigeon guillemot nest that we have been observing closely (near our back porch) has at least one chick! We carefully peeked into the crevice and caught a glimpse of a tiny puff of black downy feathers. We are excited to be able to watch their activity so closely from our window as they are very secretive with their movements typically.
  • The remaining male elephant seal has been venturing to other parts of the island as his moult is finishing up. He has been finding some creative places to wiggle over rocks into shallow pools heated by water spilling over sun warmed rocks as the tides rise.
  • We heard a surfbird’s call today while out near the jetty- it’s a very shrill sound, just like the second recording here.

Beautiful Spring Day

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 10-15 knots SW
  • Sea state: calm, rippled

Visitors/Marine Traffic: One pleasure craft within the reserve yesterday

Ecological: 

  • There are now 5 goslings between 2 nests
  • There are 2 oyster catcher chicks (nest on E side of island). They are too elusive for our camera for now!
  • The garbage brought to the island by seagulls is increasing now that they are nesting and laying eggs
  • Yesterday we spotted a patch of broken seagull eggshells near the guest house. Our best guess: the gulls are already looting neighboring nests for food

 

Spring Showers Brought New Critters!

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Weather: 

  • Sky overcast
  • Visibility 10 NM
  • Wind 10-15 knots W
  • Sea state: calm

Boats/Visitors: 

  • One pleasure craft fishing within the reserve today. They did not have a visible number so we were unable to report to DFO.
  • Yesterday Greg brought water which we pumped into our storage tank

Ecological: 

  • Today a large male elephant seal arrived! He is huge!
  • The smaller female elephant seal has returned for a bit more R&R
  • There are now goslings! There was one nest behind the boat shed which we did not see before. This morning we noticed two little fluffy goslings peeking out. Adorable!
  • The oyster catchers have begun to lay eggs
  • The seagulls are also laying eggs in full force. The nests are becoming fully established all over the island. They have become more defensive of their areas, which means we need to cover up! One of their favorite defense tactics is flying above us and trying to hit us with their droppings.

Windy Week and Sea Lion Update!

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky clear
  • Wind 15-20 knots W
  • Sea state: calm, rippled
  • It has been very windy this week. Most days the wind has hovered around 30 knots, sometimes as much as 35+ knots! It has been overcast intermittently, and we did receive some rainfall.

Visitors/Marine Traffic: 

  • Greg visited today with some supplies. Thanks Greg!
  • Since it has been so windy, there has been very little boat traffic. Yesterday we saw one small pleasure craft playing in the waves near Pedder Bay, and one coastguard ship passed by earlier today. A few small vessels and fishing boats passed by but no vessels entered the reserve.

Ecological:

  • Animal activity has been very quiet due to our stormy weather
  • The geese seem to be moving on now- there are fewer every day.
  • There are not many more seagull nests beginning but the seagulls have chosen their nesting locations and are defending them from other breeding pairs.
  • There is one sea lion who has been coming onto the jetty and does not move away from us as the others do. We believe this is the same one that we observed last year who seemed to have a propeller injury on his head. It’s interesting that he has been able to survive with seemingly quite a bit of behavioral impact due to the head trauma.