Tag Archives: greater yellowlegs

Animal Census

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Low winds today picking up in the afternoon/evening. Clear skies for most of the day. Forecasted winds of 15 knots for tomorrow morning rising to 30 in the afternoon.

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Animal Census (by Anne):

Steller Sea Lions 229
California Sea Lions 388
Harbour Seals 81
Glaucous-winged Gulls 301 (including 29 chicks)
Double-crested Cormorant 3
Pelagic Cormorant 1
Canada Goose 11
Black Oyster Catcher 11
Black Turnstone 1
Greater Yellow legs 1
Very large mixed species feeding groups to the west southwest of reserve including 100s of Rhinoceros auklets, Common Murres, Heerman’s Gulls and California Gulls.

37 whale watching boats

5 recreational boats

3-4 trips from Second Nature

Baleen whale this morning spotted feeding in the same place as yesterday evening, to the SW end of the reserve.

Anne continued with training today. James from Hybrid Plumbing came out to fix the water heater this morning. Changed cartridge filters on desalinator. Prepared for shift change.

 

 

Diversity of Bird Life

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‘The diversity of bird life has increased greatly with the improving weather this week. Rock sandpipers, Western sandpipers, Red Knots, and Greater Yellowlegs have all been seen in the intertidal zone. Yesterday evening a juvenile brown pelican spent a number of hours on Great Race before heading towards Port Angeles just after sunset. Today around noon a peregrine falcon zipped by Great Race and scared most of the small bird species away for the day. The Black Oystercatchers are becoming very territorial with one another, and the nest above the cove on the E side of Great Race now has 2 eggs.’, ‘Ryan’, ’17:42:48 ,

Mammal census:

‘Elephant Seal’, 8, ‘8 females remain on Middle Rocks, still in various stages of their moults. The tagged female X201/X202 recently left Great Race Island after completing her moult, but was photographed yesterday on Middle Rocks with the other females. This year is a pattern reversal compared to last year when it was the sub-adult male -Misery) who completed his moult on Great Race and few if any female elephant seals were seen here during this time.’, ‘Ryan’, ’17:45:02 ,

Tringa melanoleuca: Greater Yellowlegs , The Race Rocks Taxonomy

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Tringa melanoleuca at Race Rocks Photo R. Murphy
Although this species was first photographed at Race Rocks in 2009, it is a relatively common shorebird that occurs in large numbers when migrating through this area from March to May. Their breeding habitat is bogs and marshes in the boreal forest region of Canada and Alaska, nesting on the ground, in well-hidden locations near water. ( Wikipedia)

David Allinson of the Rocky Point Bird Observatory comments :”This is a moulting into breeding Greater Yellowlegs . Note the legs look pretty yellow to me (but at this time of year and in certain light they can look orangeish). Lots of both Tringa’s are moving through our area right now…(For Greater Yellowlegs, listen for their loud ‘tiew, tiew, tiew’ calls, esp. when in flight…but Lesser’s should be fairly uncommon out there… (they prefer mudflats over rocks; whereas Greater’s can be seen on either).

Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Subphylum Vertebrata
Class Aves
Order Charadriiformes
Family Scolopacidae
Genus Tringa
Species melanoleuca
(Gmelin, 1789)
Common Name: Greater Yellowlegs

Other Members of the Class Aves at Race Rocks.

taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
April 2009 Ryan Murphy