October 16

  • Bald Eagle in the morning, West side of the island.
  • Strong wind ~35 knots starting around 14:30
  • ~14:30 a young Elephant Seal (~1m long), orange tag #X351, laying on the rocks on the North side right along the jetty, shivering and showing skin lesions all over its back and right side, all the way to its back fins (dorsal part bleeding). Reported to competent authorities.

injured sea lion tag #VA047 Injured young Elephant Seal (~1m long), orange tag #X351

Animal Census with a couple quick Terns

Birds

  • Harlequin duck                                  5
  • Bald eagle adult                                2 
  • Bald eagle juvenile                           1
  • Ruddy Turnstone                              1
  • Glaucous winged Gulls                     685 
  • Cormorants                                        72
  • Pigeon Guillemots                             327
  • Oyster catcher                                    10
  • Savannah Sparrow                              6
  • Canada Goose                                     14
  • Raven                                                   2
  • Caspian Tern                                       2
  • Barn Swallow                                       2

Mammals

  • Steller sea lion                             16
  • Harbour seal                                 79
  • California sea lion                        32
  • Elephant seal sub adult male      2
  • Elephant seal adult female          3
  • Elephant seal pups                      3

Visitors:

  • Mollie – future Ecoguardian 

Facility Work: 

  • Chopped and stacked remaining fire wood
  • Deep Cleaning of Kitchen and sorting through house hold items
  • 3 coats Stained Kitchen table
  • Sharpened Axe
  • Mounted 2 large Elephant Seal winter coat sheds for future visitors and students to touch and see. 
  • Set up Hose system from Science house up to solar panels so we no longer have to haul a 5 gallon bucket up a ladder
  • Cleaned solar panels
  • Addled Canada Goose Eggs and mapped out nests
  • Cleaned windows

 

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

August 20 and 21

Compost project was completed on Saturday, with incorporation of a barrel of rain/fog water from the roof as the final touch. The rainwater was heavily contaminated with gull droppings, so not useful for much, but excellent to keep the compost moist and provide nutrients. The number and aroma of sea lions is increasing, but bird diversity remains low.

Ecological Notes:

  • Only the alpha male and one young female elephant seal were seen present in the last couple of days.  The male remained in his spot alongside the science house until mid-day Sunday. One of the young females made her way to that spot Sunday morning, and was still in place at sunset.
  • Only passerines seen in the last two days were Brown-headed Cowbird.
  • Another branded Steller’s sea lion (431Y) was seen. He was branded at Rogue Reef, Oregon in Jul 2013, and had not been reported since 2014. (Although some data is still pending.
  • Birders touring the area on Sunday found a single Common Tern, rare for this area.
  • A Short-billed Dowitcher was on East Beach on Sunday.
  • The aroma from the California sea lions and resulting flies are increasing. All  California sea lions have remained outside the fence–so far.
  • See photos below for more ecological sightings.

Weather:

  • Yesterday (Saturday, August 20):
    • Sky: Overcast in the early morning becoming clear and sunny
    • Wind: W/WNW 12-29 kts
    • Sea: light chop to 3′ chop
    • Temperature Low 13oC, High 17oC
  • Today (Sunday, August 21):
    • Sky: Overcast in the early morning becoming partly cloudy in the afternoon
    • Wind:   W/WSW 9-24 kts
    • Sea: rippled to 2′ chop
    • Temperature Low 14 oC, High 16 oC

Facility Work:

  • Solar panels cleaned daily. Windows washed.
  • Compost renewal project completed
  • Fences all checked and one west of lighthouse repaired

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve. Cruise ships are going through daily.

Here are photo highlights from the past two days. Click on the photos for larger views and captions.

Brown Pelicans

Short-billed-Dowitcher

Surfbirds

Short-billed Dowitcher with Black Turnstones

Birders checking out the shorebirds in East Bay

Young Glaucous-winged Gulls and young elephant seal

Young elephant seal beside the Science Building

Harbour seal and pup

Brown-headed Cowbirds

Bonaparte’s Gull

Steller’s sea lions

Steller’s sea lions

Branded Steller’s sea lion

Steller’s sea lions

Steller’s sea lions

Steller’s sea lions

Collected rainwater makes good compost moisture!

Boards all in place and ready for compost action

Compost project – Done!

 

August 10 and 11

Ecological Notes:

  • First sighting of Ollie the sea otter since I arrived. His new favourite location is in the kelp east of Great Race. I had seen him there on a boat trip on Aug 1.
  • First on-land passerines of my stay seen on Thursday, Aug 11: two juvenile Brown-headed Cowbirds. It is possible the bird I saw in the fog last week could have been one of these.
  • Sea lion numbers continue to climb.
  • Whale action must be in the Gulf Islands/San Juans, as fewer whale watching boats are coming this way.
  • Most of the young gulls are busy testing their wings, especially when the wind comes up.
  • Very low tides have revealed the eel grass beds and normally hidden intertidal zone.
  • See photos below for more ecological sightings.

Weekly Census observed on Wednesday, August 10:

Mammals

  • Elephant seals: 3 (1 adult male, two juvenile females)
  • Steller sea lions: 124
  • California sea lions: 40
  • Harbour seals: 186
  • Sea otter 1

Birds

  • Canada geese: 4
  • Harlequin ducks: 8
  • Black oystercatchers: 9 (8 adults 1 chick )
  • Killdeer 2 (only on island between dusk and dawn)
  • Black Turnstones: 194
  • Surfbirds: 17
  • Common Murres: 79
  • Pigeon Guillemots:183
  • Rhinoceros Auklets: 2
  • Heermann’s Gulls: 2
  • California Gulls: 353
  • Glaucous-winged Gulls: 341 adults 169 chicks (probably undercounted as wind caused a lot of chicks to seek cover)
  • Caspian Terns: 2
  • Pelagic Cormorants: 5
  • Brandt’s Cormorants: 12
  • Brown Pelican: 1

Weather:

  • Yesterday (Wednesday, August 10):
    • Sky: Overcast, with a few sunny periods
    • Wind: W 11-31 kts
    • Sea: up to 3′ chop
    • Temperature Low 12 oC, High 19 oC
  • Today (Thursday, August 11):
    • Sky: Overcast until mid morning, then partly cloudy
    • Wind: W 4-21 kts
    • Sea: calm to rippled
    • Temperature Low 14 oC, High 18 oC

Facility Work:

  • Solar panels cleaned daily. Some windows washed.  Postponed on Wednesday due to brief electrical storm. North side of researcher building skipped on Thursday due to presence of large elephant seal.
  • Compost renewal project continues.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve. Cruise ship traffic is increasing

Here are photo highlights from the past two days. Click on the photos for larger views and captions.

Eel grass

Race Rocks mussel beds appear unaffected by last year’s heat dome

Eel grass and mussel beds

Leatherback chitons

Bull Kelp

Many varieties of seaweeds exposed by the low tides

Feather duster tube worms in the intertidal zone

Alumni tours from Pearson College continued.

Cooperative Brown Pelican for census

Brown Pelican south of Great Race

Lots of food available Aug 10

Bait balls nearby were a boon for gull chicks

Young California Gull

Heermann’s Gull

Harlequin Ducks (females)

Young elephant seals on the ramp

Young elephant seal

Caspian Tern

Juvenile Brown-headed Cowbirds

Brown Pelicans west of Great Race Aug 11

Brown Pelican

Brown Pelicans west of Great Race

Smoke is coming. Moonrise on Aug 11

California sea lions

Black Oystercatcher

Ollie the sea otter sighting

Pigeon Guillemots

California sea lion

Many Visitors at Race Rocks

Ecological Notes:

Race Rocks is a wealth of biodiversity, and an amazing place to get to spend any amount of time. Despite the huge amount of wildlife that spend time on Race Rocks over the winter, it can feel a little quiet. Not last week!

We were super lucky getting some of the Pearson College students out despite COVID lockdowns on Campus, this is always one of the highlights of our time at Race Rocks! The kids always have the best questions and remind me why I pursued the life I live now. Any opportunity to share the joy and smells of Race Rocks.

Pearson Students getting Elephant Seal 101. Photo by Laura Verhegge

After the final group of students left, we got a surprise visit from DFO via their helicopter coming by for a socially-distanced visit. We had a helicopter buzzing us throughout the week, and it wasn’t until it landed at the end of the week we realized that was most likely the crew checking out the island, seals, and heli-pad. The elephant seals clearly weren’t fans of the helicopter. Interesting-ly the idling helicopter covers the same sound frequencies the Beachmaster uses to drum his dominance. Our Beachmaster tried drumming at the intruder, but he couldn’t overpower the sound and decided that abandoning his harem and a trip into the ocean was preferable to hanging out with a helicopter.

The next day we woke up to a new female Elephant Seal! We suspect this seal was Tyra from last year, going off her scar patterns and BEAUTIFUL eyes. At this point in the season we have expectations for these seals: they come ashore, hang out for 5 days, give birth, nurse for 21 days, mate and leave. Tyra was a reminder that we don’t really know that much about these mysterious animals. She came ashore, mated, and left. She looked great, very plump. I am really quite surprised. Maybe not all pregnancies come to term, and in that light her behaviour actually makes a lot of sense. She needs to come ashore when a Beachmaster is ready to mate, and if she doesn’t have a pup to birth then there really isn’t a reason to stick around and wait until it’s time to moult.

Tyra returning to Race Rocks to visit the Beachmaster. All hail the Beachmaster!

And we had a new pup born! I told you lots happened. Rhi-Rhi has been ashore since January 25th and slipped out a new pup this morning. The new pup is super chirpy, and very mobile; it had a very ‘rolled up’ vibe directly after being born, with curled fingernails and it’s giant flippers wrapped around itself. We expect her to nurse until the 22nd of February, but clearly I need to stop trying to predict what these animals are going to do.

Rhi-Rhi inspecting her newborn pup.

Facility Work:

Race Rocks has a Boston Whaler from it’s Coast Guard era that can be used in case of an emergency. During a very low tide we figured this was the ideal time to re-spool the twisted up cable used to launch the boat. While it’s easy to think that emergencies never happen, it’s great to know that in that hypothetical situation the boat will be able to be launched on any tide without any problems. Big thanks to the previous Eco-Guardians who did some great boat maintenance!

DND events:

Lots of blasting over the last week, some of the Pearson College students were definitely surprised.

Elephant Seals seem happiest when all smushed up against each other.

Feature Event:

We had someone report a wayward Elephant Seals wandering around Sturdees Beach & the Gorge vale Golf Club. This fits very well with the theme of ‘we don’t really know much about Elephant Seals’ and thought it would be worth mentioning. As the Northern Elephant Seal population continues to recover, hopefully we’ll all get to experience more Elephant Seals in British Colombia, and sometimes that might be a returning pup who hasn’t really figured out the timing of things yet. They’re really remarkable animals, who spend a very small proportion of their time (<10%) above the water Over the last 2 years there have been wayward pups reported crawling around in areas where they were not wanted, these little seals are just looking for some place safe to moult and head back into the ocean. This is one of the parts that makes Race Rocks such an important place for these animals: a place on land where the seals can hang out and sleep without being disturbed: their time on land relies on them fasting for weeks on end losing up to 40% of their body weight during these stints. Every time they get woken up or stressed that is another drain on their limited energy available, leading to the first couple of years where mortality can be up to 75%.

A wayward elephant seal pup at Christie Point, photos by Dorothy Chambers

The silver colouration shows this wayward pup has already moulted, so probably from last years birthing season. While we would expect pups to return to Race Rocks to moult, we don’t really know how they return to the same areas, and they may just try out new areas at different times; or just get lost.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/seal-hits-the-links-at-gorge-vale-likely-same-one-that-has-toured-view-royal-5009767

Weather Events:

It was a lovely week of weather, punctuated with a nice little blast of wind of 40 knots+ Sunday and Monday.

The first pup Mikey is already starting to moult his soft baby fuzz into a silvery sleek diving suit of fur at 41 days old.

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php

New Elephant Seal + Pupdate

Rhi=Rhi came back and is ready to birth!

Ecological Notes:

We have a new female Elephant Seal on Race Rocks! While she looks suspiciously like one of the returning mothers, without a tag it is hard to tell. She was thoroughly investigated by our local Beachmaster, and sassed Mikey for getting too close. Mikey seems to have learned his lesson to stay out the Beachmasters way, after a few small bites Mikey is now quite mobile and has learned the paths on the island to avoid further conflict.

Lil Blasty in one of the few moments not blasting squawks.

As for the other Elephant Seal Pup: named Nereo by it’s mothers namesake, but I have been referring to it as ‘Lil Blasty’ due to his extreme volume while ‘chirping’. The current theory is that Elephant Seal moms and pups learn each others vocalizations to identify each other, and regardless of the background noise present, they seem to always vocalize at the same volume.

Jocelyn’s vocalizations come in around 50-70db, where Lil Blasty is clocking in at 100-110db with his vocalizations. For reference: WCB recommends not being exposed to over 85db for prolonged times due to hearing damage. It definitely hurts to be outside when he’s shrieking.

The Beachmaster being grumpy that no one wants to mate with him.

Facility Work:

We bucked up the logs that were snagged over the last week, and got them off the boat/seal ramp. Heavy algae growth over the last 2 weeks so we’re started pressure washing the algae to keep things from getting too slipper.

DND events:

Canada’s Navy has started doing tester laps outside of Esquimalt.

Feature Event:

Mikey has learned to avoid the Beachmaster when he’s on the prowl, and decided to explore off the beaten path to avoid any conflict. We suspected he would fall off the ‘mountain’ climbed today, but displayed some remarkable manoeuvrability for a chubby little seal.

Mikey mountain-climbing.

A hallmark of the maturing pup is the wear-pattern on their chins. The chin is a key instrument for Elephant Seal locomotion: where they re-arrange their belly by lifting it up with their chin. The chin can also work to level the seals bulk up onto rocks, steps, and rough terrain.

Mikey starting to show his all-important chin patch.

Weather Events:

January means the start of some epic sunsets.

The last couple of days the temperature has dropped down to 4°C with light N winds around 10-15knots. This is log weather.

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php

New Baby Elephant Seal

Typically the newborn Elephant Seals don’t move their heads around much after birth, but this new pup seems to have something to prove.

Jocelyn decided to give birth this morning, after spending 5 days sussing out the island. This is the same time spent on land as the other mom this breeding season, and the same timeline this seal had last year. These seals having remarkably consistent timing!

The new pup seems incredibly well developed and mobile, and immediately after getting born started squawk-chirping this our resident wean-ling Mikey. While some Elephant Seal mom’s can be very protective of their young, Jocelyn seems very chill about having another pup hanging out around her.

Our current Elephant Seal family, not shown here the grumpy Beachmaster who only wants to mate. Shows the difference between a newborn pup and a 28 day old weanling.

Elephant Seal Swapping

Mikey is all on his own, exploring the island mouth-first and trying to avoid running into the angry Beachmaster.

Ecological Notes:

Beverly wrapped up her time nursing her pup, mated a couple of times, and headed back to the open ocean to recover her lost weight. She spent 27 days on land, nursing her pup for 21 days, the exact same number of days as last year. She has remarkably consistent timing.

Beverly and Micheal Day 1. Starting around 500kg she’ll end up losing around 200kg throughout nursing.

Beverly and Micheal Day 21. Beverly has lost around 40% of her weight throughout nursing.

The next working we woke up to the bellowing of a new pregnant elephant seal, timing and characteristics point to this seal being Jocelyn (another return from last year), but she is not tagged, so we’re guessing that it’s her by comparing photos of identifying scars. This is a day later than she showed up last year, and we’re excited at the prospect of another elephant seal pup! After 5 pups last year the thought of only having one pup born here was pretty disappointing.

The seal we suspect is Jocelyn, she is soooo big I’m surprised she could make it up the ramp.

For those interested, the Beachmaster mated with Beverly 27 times 4 days (that were noticed/documented). It’s an impressive feat for sure, but seems to depend on the exhaustion that sets in towards the end of nursing. On bigger beaches a Bachmaster can have a harmem of 30-100 females, so only having 1 or 2 females to mate with could be related to our males ‘vigour’.

Elephant Seal mating can be pretty unpleasant to watch sometimes, but it’s clearly a method that works for them or the population wouldn’t have recovered from near-extinction.

Facility Work:

After last weeks 50 knot blasting, we spent this week repairing the electric fence and picking up the pieces that blew off the buildings. We’ve had some massive high tides, as well as some logs piling up on the jetty. I’m still unsure what the actualy conditions are that contribute to the log pileup, but we made sure to snag some good looking firewood logs for next winters Eco-Guardians.

Beverly navigating the log-jam on the boat ramp.

DND events:

2 days with blasting since the last update, but it’s been very quiet. We did see Coast Guard heading offshore during the big blows, practice makes perfect!

Feature Event:

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Flat calm weather and winds under 3 knots have been delightful the last couple of nights. We’re still trying to figure out how you can get a crystal clear sky, and enough fog to set off the fog horn…

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Last weeks wind scouring led to this weeks flat calm, perfect time to pick up the pieces and get ready for whenever the next storm rolls through.

 

Weaning for Elephant Seals consists of abandoning their pups on the beach. Mikey didn’t enjoy that much, and screamed for the whole first night before accepting his independence.

Happy New Year from Race Rocks!

Coming into 2022, the snow is melting and the elephant seal pup is getting faaaaat.

Mikey has ballooned from his starting weight (around 50lbs) to his current blubbery size around 200lbs, quadrupling his size in 10 days. It’s pretty remarkable to see the massive increase in size for this little seal pup, and you can see the calories flowing from his mom into the pup.

Day 1 for Mikey the Elephant Seal pup

Day 10 of Mikey the Elephant Seal Pup

As Beverly gets closer to weaning her pup (typically they nurse for 20 days), the Beachmaster is getting increasingly interested in mating. Last year Bev didn’t start mating until the last 2 days of nursing, which means we are expecting anther week until the mating starts.

 

The Race Rocks Beachmaster checking to see if Beverly is ready to mate yet. We are expecting another week until she’s interested.

One of the more ‘stressful’ events during this time is the Beachmaster checking on the pup. This involves mouthing the pup, which looks like the pup is going to get bit, but I think it’s more of a full contact smell than an actual bite. Last year this was alarming when this 4000lb seal would roll up on a little 200lb pup, but as we saw Bev mating with this same Beachmaster, odds are that the pup is his, and to date none of the mouthing has resulted in any damage to the pup.

We’ve found it incredibly interesting to watch Beverly raise her pups on Race Rocks, and the way she used to geography of the island to protect her pup. Bev uses the steps and walkway right outside of the eco-guardian house as a kind of fortification around her pup. When the Beachmaster comes up to check on Bev and her pup he can’t climb up the steps , and also can’t really get at the pup when he’s wedged on the ledge. This buys her time to get the pup nice and big before starting to adventure around the island with him, which started on day 9.

Bev’s magic ledge of protection.