Tag Archives: fox-sparrow

July 19 and 20 – Weekly Census

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Ecological Notes:

  • An elephant seal swam up to the boat ramp at some point yesterday late afternoon or evening. When I went to do the seawater sample at 19:30, I spotted her sleeping at the water’s edge. As far as I can tell, she has been there ever since.
  • See the photo gallery below for more ecological happenings from the past two days.

Weekly Census recorded on Wednesday, July 20:

It was not an ideal day to record the census, as it was quite foggy. Although, I had a window of less fog at around noon, when I could see all the islets that comprise Race Rocks and the water in between, so I was able to count the species from the lantern room of the lighthouse. I counted other species throughout the day as I walked around.

  • Elephant Seal: 1
  • Steller/Northern sea lions: 15
  • Harbour seals: 125
  • Bald eagles: 2 (1 juvenile and 1 adult)
  • Canada geese: 9 (5 adults, 4 goslings)
  • Black oystercatchers: 11 (8 adults, 3 chicks)
  • Cormorants: 5
  • Glaucous-winged gulls nesting on the main island: 229
  • Glaucous-winged gull chicks: approximately 250 (It is hard to get an exact number due to their camouflage in the grass and hiding under their parents) 
  • Gulls not nesting (some glaucous-winged and some other species) on the south end of the main island and outer islands: 96
  • Pigeon guillemots: 163
  • Black turnstones: 2
  • Western sandpiper: 3
  • Fox sparrow: 1

Weather:

  • Yesterday (July 19):
    • Sky: Partly cloudy, fog in evening
    • Wind: W 3-29 kts
    • Sea: rippled, then up to 1′ chop in afternoon and evening
    • Temperature Low 11oC, High 15oC
  • Today (July 20):
    • Sky: Fog overnight, a mixture of partly cloudy and fog throughout the day and into the evening
    • Wind: W 12-30 kts
    • Sea: rippled, then up 2′ chop in afternoon and evening
    • Temperature Low 11oC, High 14oC

Visitors:

  • 2 visitors from Pearson College to deliver supplies. 

Facility Work:

  • Scrubbed and squeegeed solar panels, routine tidying and checking infrastructure around the island.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve.

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

July 17 and 18

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Ecological Notes:

  • A large pod of humpbacks has been around Race Rocks for at least the past few days, with many visible to the south. Today, I saw a few blows and dorsal fins near north of Turbine Rocks (north of the main island), then near West Rocks. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos.
  • I keep seeing a fast moving barn swallow and fox sparrow fluttering low around the island. I only see one at a time, so it is possible there are more of each species. Similar to the humpbacks, the little birds don’t stop in one place long enough for a photo opportunity.
  • See the photo gallery below for more ecological happenings from the past two days.

Weather:

  • Yesterday (July 17):
    • Sky: Cloudy, heavy rain showers after sunset and overnight
    • Wind: W 14-25 kts
    • Sea: rippled, then up to 2′ chop in evening
    • Temperature Low 12oC, High 16oC
  • Today (July 18):
    • Sky: Partly Cloudy
    • Wind: W 12-30 kts
    • Sea: rippled, then 1′ chop in afternoon
    • Temperature Low 13oC, High 15oC

Visitors:

  • No visitors

Facility Work:

  • Scrubbed and squeegeed solar panels, routine tidying and checking infrastructure around the island.

 DND Events:

  • Between 10:20 and 13:20 today, there were three detonations on the nearby DND (Department of National Defence) training area on Bentinck Island, about 2km or 1NM from Great Race Rocks. The sudden explosions sent many birds into the air, as well as seals and sea lions into the water.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve.

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

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

Weekly Census

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Wind: yesterday variable 4-22 knots, today NE-N 1-36 knots
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today chop up to 1 m
Visibility: both days 10-15 NM
Sky: both days partly cloudy
Temperature: yesterday 5-7 °C, today 4-5 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.11 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

Here are the weekly census results observed today:
4 elephant seals (1 female adult, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
24 steller sea lions
33 california sea lions
58 harbour seals
7  bald eagles (2 adults, 5 juveniles)
13 Canada geese
7 brandt’s cormorants
4 double-crested cormorants
29 pelagic cormorants
48 gulls (mostly thayer’s)
24 black oystercatchers
29 harlequin ducks
3 surfbirds
12 black turnstones
1 snow bunting
1 song sparrow
1 fox sparrow

Yesterday, there was one tour boat, one pleasure craft and the Pearson College boat Second Nature in the ecological reserve. Greg and Silke, dropped off some supplies from Pearson College. No boats were around today.

The elephant seal pups lounging on the boardwalk by the jetty. They all still have patches of their pup fur. The two month old female pup is on the left. The two and a half month old male pup is in the middle. The youngest female pup, almost two months old, is on the right.

 

Weekly Census

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Wind: yesterday 0-19 knots from W then E, today 2-19 knots from N then W
Sea State: yesterday calm, today calm in am and rippled in pm
Visibility: yesterday 10-15 NM, today 15 NM
Sky: both days clear with cloudy patches throughout day
Temperature: yesterday 5-8 °C, today 4-6 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.23 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

Six visitors briefly came to the island yesterday morning. Lawrence installed the new deck hatch he made for the station boat. Everyone helped transport and load eight of the old batteries onto the college boat to be taken back to the shore for recycling.

I ran the water pump for five hours to fill up the cistern with cleaner seawater.

Three tour boats were in the ecological reserve yesterday. Today, a dive boat had several divers in the water just north of North Rocks at slack tide in the mid morning.

There was a lot biodiversity in the ecological reserve today. Here are the results from the weekly census:
6 elephant seals (1 adult female, 2 adult males, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
57 steller sea lions (all on Middle Rock)
50 california sea lions (19 on Great Race, 31 on Middle Rock)
52 harbour seals
1 sea otter
6 bald eagles (4 juveniles, 2 adults)
8 Canada geese
18 brandt’s cormorants
16 double-crested cormorants
35 pelagic cormorants
2 ravens
141 gulls (mostly thayer’s gulls)
14 black oystercatchers
1 whimbrel
86 pigeon guillemots
16 harlequin ducks
10 surfbirds
28 black turnstones
1 snow bunting
1 song sparrow
1 fox sparrow

Weekly Census

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Wind: yesterday 2-16 knots from S to W, today 0-36 knots from W to S to W
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today calm until mid afternoon when seas turned rough
Visibility: yesterday 10-15 NM, today 5-15 NM
Sky: yesterday overcast, today overcast with patches of sun then rain in late afternoon
Temperature: yesterday 7-9 °C, today 6-8 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.47 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The numbers of sea lions continues to be low. For the first time this winter, there were more steller than california sea lions in the ecological reserve.

For the past day, the elephant seals have all been stationary. An elephant seal was seen on Middle Rocks today along with california sea lions. I believe it’s the smaller adult male that was on the main island until recently.

Having heard the killdeer on many evenings this winter, but not seen any, I finally saw one this morning on the lawn. They are named for their shrill repetitive call which sounds like “kill-deer!”

Here are the results from the weekly census observed on Friday, February 28:
7 elephant seals (4 adult males, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
54 steller sea lions
53 california sea lions
86 harbour seals
5 bald eagles (2 adults, 3 juveniles)
26 Canada geese
9 brandt’s cormorants
10 double-crested cormorants
31 pelagic cormorants
72 gulls (mostly thayer’s)
8 black oystercatchers
66 pigeon guillemots
17 harlequin ducks
1 killdeer
15 black turnstones
6 surfbirds
1 fox sparrow

Yesterday, Greg, Alex, Warren and Cole were on the island to do maintenance on the desalinator and batteries. Two tour boats were seen in the ecological reserve each day. This afternoon, the RCM SAR boat from Sooke drove around the main island and the crew took photos.

 

Varied Thrush and River Otter

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Wind: yesterday 2-27 knots from NE to W, today 2-27 knots from W to E
Sea State: yesterday rippled in am and calm in pm, today rippled then calm in evening
Visibility: yesterday 10-15 NM, today 5-15 NM
Sky: yesterday clear, today partly cloudy with sunny patches
Temperature: yesterday 4-8 °C, today 6-8 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.36 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

A varied thrush was seen on Race Rocks today. The bird that has similarities in size and colouring to an American Robin, hasn’t been seen this winter and possibly never before on Race Rocks. There is no mention of other sightings on this website. According to the Audubon field guide, varied thrushes like dense forests with lots of water. That’s about as different as you can get from Race Rocks, where there are no trees or fresh water. Perhaps this bird was flying over the Strait and stopped for a rest.

There were 20 pigeon guillemots near the jetty yesterday. They swam around, perched on rocks and the edges of the jetty. None were seen today.

The elusive river otter was seen today. It was sunning itself on a log on the rocks below camera 5. When it saw me taking photos from about 30 m away, it went around the corner and continued to soak up the sun.

Over the past few days, I have been trying to tidy up the human items left on the ground, before the grass and other plants grow up around them. There are many old hoses in various places that were at one time used for gardening and washing buildings. I have collected all the old hoses so they don’t interfere with the animals. Black plastic sheets that were used for landscaping at the base of the tower and around the main residence were becoming exposed. I removed all the pieces of plastic that have worked their way to the surface.

There were seven visitors to the island yesterday from Ocean Networks Canada. They spent several hours calibrating the CODAR equipment that measures near-surface ocean currents for the central portion of the Juan de Fuca Strait.

Yesterday, other than the Pearson College boat, Second Nature, there were two tour boats in the ecological reserve. Today, four tour boats, one sailboat and two pleasure boats were around Race Rocks.

Below are the results of the weekly census observed on Saturday, February 22. The numbers are substantially lower for almost every species regularly seen over the winter. Perhaps the relatively clear and calm conditions of this past week have encouraged the birds and marine mammals to venture further from their winter retreat on Race Rocks.
6 elephant seals (3 adult males, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
8 steller sea lions
60 california sea lions
30 harbour seals
1 river otter
6 bald eagles (3 adults, 3 juveniles)
2 Canada geese
1 raven
20 brandt’s cormorants
10 double-crested cormorants
62 pelagic cormorants
101 gulls (mostly thayer’s gulls)
6 black oystercatchers
10 harlequin ducks
30 surfbirds
10 black turnstones
1 varied thrush
1 snow bunting
1 song sparrow
1 fox sparrow

UPDATED February 26: Photos have been uploaded now that the website is fixed.

Weekly Census

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Wind: yesterday 3-32 knots from NE to S to W, today 3-45 knots from W to S
Sea State: yesterday rippled with chop up to 1 m in evening, today chop up to 1 m, then rippled in afternoon
Visibility: yesterday 5-10 NM, today 10-15NM
Sky: yesterday overcast and rain, today clear
Temperature: yesterday 5-9 °C, today 7-9 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.11 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

Results of weekly megafauna and bird census from Saturday, February 8:
9 elephant seals (2 female adults, 4 male adults, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
169 steller sea lions
202 california sea lions
29 harbour seals
41 bald eagles (37 adults, 4 juveniles)
1 raven
19 brandt’s cormorants
138 pelagic cormorants
65 double-crested cormorants
4 canada geese
412 gulls (most are thayer’s gulls)
20 black oystercatchers
2 surf scoters
20 harlequin ducks
35 surfbirds
26 black turnstones
1 snow bunting
1 fox sparrow

Yesterday in the morning, three members of the Coast Guard came in a helicopter to do a routine check on some equipment on the island. The pilot phoned ahead to confirm the best place to land to try to avoid disturbing the animals. They landed on the helicopter pad. Sometimes they land on the grass at the base of the lighthouse. The Coast Guard guys were excited to see the elephant seals, which they hadn’t seen before. Usually when they fly into the lightstations up the coast, they see a lot of sea lions.

In the afternoon yesterday, three visitors from Pearson College came to the island to have a tour.

The only other boats that were seen in the ecological reserve were two tour boats this afternoon.

See the photos below for some views from the last two days.

Groundhog Day

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Wind: yesterday 0-52 knots from S to W, today 0-18 knots from W to NE
Sea State: yesterday rippled with waves up to 1 m in afternoon and evening, today rippled
Visibility: yesterday 5-10 NM, today 15 NM
Sky: yesterday rain then patches of sun, today clear
Temperature: yesterday 5-12 °C, today 3-5 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.49 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

This morning at sunrise, the elephant seals saw their shadows. As the lore goes for their fellow mammal the groundhog, that means six more weeks of winter. Hard to believe with the crocuses blooming and daffodils buds almost ready to burst. Although, there is snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow as the temperature drops to 0 °C.

There were no visitors to the island. Two eco tour boats were seen in the reserve this afternoon.

Here are the results for the weekly census, conducted in the afternoon of Sunday, February 2:
10 elephant seals (3 female adults, 4 male adults, 1 female pup, 1 male pup and 1 unknown gendered pup)
147 steller sea lions
288 california sea lions
104 harbour seals
10 bald eagles (5 adults, 5 juveniles)
1 raven
109 brandt’s cormorants
182 pelagic cormorants
49 double-crested cormorants
24 canada geese
931 gulls (most are thayer’s gulls)
18 black oystercatchers
1 whimbrel
1 surf scoter
8 harlequin ducks
16 black turnstones
1 snow bunting
1 fox sparrow

Weekly Census

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Wind: yesterday 0-15 knots from E to S, today 0-10 knots from E to N
Sea State: yesterday and today rippled
Visibility: yesterday and today between 10-15 NM
Sky: yesterday cloudy with periods of rain and sun, clear overnight, today cloudy with periods of sun
Temperature: both days 7-10 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 414.08 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The five day old elephant seal pup died overnight. It was in rough shape yesterday, possibly from attacks by other elephant seals. In the morning yesterday, it had fresh blood on its face and the alpha male was lying on the pup. Ravens and black turnstones have been pecking at the seals face occasionally for the past day.

The first elephant seal pup, which is fending for itself now as a weaner, was lying on its back today and I could tell it was a male. See the photo below. I am not sure the sex of the other pups, as I haven’t had a good look at their abdomens.

There were four visitors to the island yesterday. Jeff brought out Greg, Alex and Ric to work on the power issues. They hooked up a backup generator to help power the island and top up the batteries. In the afternoon, Greg brought a diesel delivery. Now, the island has a full supply of fuel for when the main generator gets fixed within the next few days. In the past few days, there has a been some power generated by solar energy, which has helped keep the batteries charged. Thanks to some IT help from Dan at the college, now there is internet for the weather systems and monitoring the power.

Four eco tour boats were in the reserve over the past two days.

Results of weekly megafauna and bird census done on Saturday afternoon:
10 elephant seals (3 pups, 3 adult females, 4 adult males)
355 california sea lions
111 steller sea lions
6 harbour seals
36 bald eagles (29 adults, 7 juvenile)
2 ravens
312 pelagic cormorants
62 double-crested cormorants
51 brandt’s cormorants
972 gulls (the majority are thayer’s gulls)
2 canada geese
61 black oystercatchers
1 whimbrel
7 harlequin ducks
41 surfbirds
47 black turnstones
1 snow bunting
1 fox sparrow