Tag Archives: cormorants

Sunny Skies, Census

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Weather: 

  • Blue skies, no clouds
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 10-20 knots W
  • Water calm

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Greg came by yesterday with some fresh water for our main tank.
  • Quite a few tour vessels
  • Greg and Pearson Alumni are touring the reserve over the next few days as part of their reunion, but they will not be coming on land.

Ecological: 

  • There are quite a few more sea lions this week than last. They have started to haul out on Great Race Rock in addition to West and Middle Rock.

Census:

  • 51 sea lions
  • 40 seals (including 3-5 pups)
  • 3 Cormorants
  • 2 families of geese (from the spring nesting season)
  • 2 elephant seals (moulting males)
  • 300 + seagulls

Protective Father Elephant Seal

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 knots NW
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw two ecotour boats go by
  • No visitors

Ecological

  • Bernard was keeping an eye out for the pups today, looking up from his sleep every time one of them would cry out, which is less frequent and high pitched now too as they continue to grow. Having a father elephant seal protect it’s pups like this after the mother has left is not ordinary behaviour so this has been very interesting to watch.
  • Lots of Canada Geese landed on the island today, around 6-10 pairs that are very territorial with each other. I assume they’re getting ready for nesting season as that generally starts around March.
  • Still a decent number of cormorants, black oyster catchers and black turnstones around too.

Notes

  • DND blasting has started up again with several loud explosions going off each day for the past few days.

Less Sea Lions Today

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 5-13 NE throughout day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • didn’t see any eco tours today
  • lots of shipping vessels in the distance as usual
  • no visitors today

Ecological

  • number of sea lions hanging around seems to be going slightly down
  • consistent number of seagulls and cormorants

Other

  • lots of DND blasts today.

Census day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 W
  • Sky: cloudy throughout the day and a but of a drizzle this morning
  • Water: calm, but the current was running pretty good

Boats/Visitors

  • The new generator was set up today so we had a few people to come in and set that up which is great

Ecological

  • even more sea lions this time, of both stellars and californias
  • also 2 more elephant seal showed up this morning, both female

Notes

  • tried to set up the electric fence again by the generator room but the sea lions tear back it down in minutes
  • Saw the sea lions today that was darted a couple weeks ago and he is still healing (pictures in gallery)
  • And the sea lion that currently has a band around its neck is still around
  • There was a stellar that I thought might have something around his neck but it was just a gash, possibly from other sea lion?

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 62
  • California Sea Lions – 456
  • Elephant Seals – 5 (all female)
  • Harbour Seals – 128
  • Gulls (unspecified) – 524
  • Cormorants – 367
  • Black turnstones – 32
  • Sparrows – 43
  • Oyster Catchers – 6
  • Sea Otter ( I can’t sea it very well but I’m sure it was around ) – 1

Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles throughout the day
  • Wind:  0-10 NW throughout the day
  • Sky: clear all day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Mostly just whale watchers and other boats cruising by on this beautiful sunny day

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around but not as many as I thought there would be

Notes

  • DnD was blasting again today
  • I finally have a full fresh water tank so hopefully it rains soon so I can start pressure washing and cleaning the pathways and buildings off
  • Significantly less sea lions I expected I suspect many of them went for swim while I was doing the census because it was a rather hot day today but here are the numbers are I have right now

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 68
  • California Sea Lions – 97
  • Harbour Seals – 72
  • Gulls – 153
  • Cormorants – 73
  • Black Turnstones – 21
  • Sparrows – 24ish, hard to see and fast to fly off

I am Back and the Census

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Sorry about my last 10 days being absent but I am back now and here is an updated census.

Weather

  • Visibility: Pretty clear 15 Miles throughout today
  • Wind:  0-5 SW with small range all day
  • Sky: Sunny all day
  • Water: pretty flat but the current is very visible and moving

Boats/Visitors

  • I came in today and so did a few students to have a look around, we also had an engineer to come look at the new generator

Ecological

  • quite a bit of sea lions, I don’t see the elephant seal sticking around anymore and I have not seen any oyster catchers today. Also the sea otter in the north kelp patch is back

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 142
  • California Sea Lions: 186
  • Elephant Seals: 0
  • Harbour Seals: 28
  • Unspecified Gulls: 153
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 0
  • Cormorants: 18
  • Canada Geese: 12
  • Oystercatchers: 0
  • Black Turnstones: 48

 

Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: Started off at 10 miles but closed in to the point the fog horn was going off for a good part of the morning and then a sunny break this afternoon and back to pretty cloudy now
  • Wind:  10-15 W this morning picked up to above 30, same direction
  • Sky: pretty cloudy with a little break in the afternoon
  • Water: pretty flat but the current is very visible and moving

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours today

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions, not really seeing elephant seals, also there was about 26 of these birds I will post a picture of but I wasn’t what bird it was, will look into it.

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 176
  • California Sea Lions: 153
  • Elephant Seals: 0
  • Harbour Seals: 24
  • Unspecified Gulls: 212
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 0
  • Cormorants: 18
  • Canada Geese: 8
  • Oystercatchers: 8
  • Harlequinn Ducks: 0
  • Crows: 0
  • Unspecified bird: 26

Notes

  • Have not spotted the river otters again
  • Sea lions refused to budge when I went to get the water sample, I gave up and found a way around the one that would not move
  • They somehow dragged a ladder down the jetty so I had a tough time retrieving that because the ladder was attached to a rope that got wrapped around a rock, I managed to bring it up behind the boat shed, also the boat shed door looks to be in pretty rough shape the sea lions are always piled up against it