April 11 and 12 – Weekly Census

Wind: yesterday W-S 0-32 knots, today W-SE 2-17 knots
Sea State: both days calm
Visibility: yesterday 10-15 NM, today 15 NM
Sky: yesterday partly cloudy then clear from mid morning, today clear
Temperature: yesterday 8-14 °C, today 7-14 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 416.33 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The lawn in front of the house got busier this morning with nine elephant seals, two more than yesterday. A tenth seal, the pup, was near the jetty. The two new arrivals have green tags on their tail flippers. One is a male tagged C887. The other is a juvenile tagged G512 on the right flipper and E779 on the right. I will update the information on age and past sightings when I hear back from the researchers. The green tags signify the elephant seals were tagged at Año Nuevo, south of San Francisco.

[UPDATED April 13: I heard back from Dr. Patrick Robinson, the researcher from Año Nuevo Reserve. The elephant seal with green tags E779 and G512 was tagged as a pup in February 2019, where he was born at Año Nuevo. This is the first time the male juvenile has been spotted outside of Año Nuevo, where he was last seen as a weaner in March, 2019. The elephant seal with the green tag C887 is a juvenile male that was born at Año Nuevo in February 2017. He has been seen at Race Rocks in the month of December in 2017, 2018 and 2019.]

There was one boat seen in the ecological reserve on each of the past two days, a pleasure boat yesterday and a sailboat today.

Census results observed this afternoon at low tide:
10 elephant seals (1 female pup, 1 female juvenile, 1 juvenile, 2 sub adult males, 5 female adults)
16 steller sea lions
91 california sea lions
1 sea otter
72 harbour seals
5 bald eagles (2 juveniles, 3 adults)
16 Canada geese
1 black brant goose
99 gulls (mostly thayer’s)
17 pelagic cormorants
4 brandt’s cormorants
5 double-crested cormorants
6 black oystercatchers
24 pigeon guillemots
7 harlequin ducks
2 surfbirds
5 black turnstones

Wind, Fog, and Eggs!

Weather: 

  • Visibility varied today. This evening visibility is excellent, 10-13 miles. This afternoon we were surrounded by fog and could not see even nearby north rock (less than 1 mile).
  • Wind this evening is blowing 30-40 knots. This morning was calmer, 12 knots.
  • Sky clear. This was interrupted mid afternoon by thick fog.
  • Water white capping and breaking into spindrift.

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Today was fairly quiet, with only a few whale watching boats in the morning which seemed to mostly keep a good distance. Greg visited this afternoon to deliver water as we are still waiting for the new desalinator. A former student visited as well.
  • The swiftsure international sailing race passed Race Rocks on Saturday, so we have been seeing the boats trickle back towards Victoria over the past couple of days.
  • Yesterday we spotted a rental boat from Pedder Bay Marina attempt to pass through the channel between our main island and the south islands.
  • Lately whale watching boats have been present viewing the elephant seals and sea lions. Many have appeared to be well within the 100m distance from sea lions required by DFO.

Whale watching boat disturbs sea lions on jetty

Whale watching boat approaches sea lions on rocks

Ecological: 

  • Two evenings past we noticed the first seagull eggs of the season. We noticed that one nest was missing its egg the next morning. The seagulls have become quite aggressive towards us but only if we get too close to their nest by accident.
  • There are still four elephant seals on the island, two moulting, the juvenile male from this past spring, and an older female.
  • The sea lions have remained on the SE side of the island, although fewer than what we were seeing before surrounding our jetty. They have been enjoying surfing the waves periodically.
  • Another oyster catcher nest spotted on the SW side.
  • We have been finding dead seagulls presumably killed by the bald eagles that have been hanging around. They especially like to sit on top of camera three.

Seagull guarding its egg and nest.

Other: 

  • Except for in the occasional presence of fog, we have been able to operate the island completely with solar on clear days.
  • We were in need of batteries so missed a few days of salinity/temperature data collection.

Beautiful weather

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • quite a few boats the last couple days, from canoes to sailboats and some people from the college

Maintenance

  • There has been so much solar, I don’t need to run the generator very much, so thats been really nice

Ecological

  • There was a pretty young sea lion pup on the rock by the crane today
  • the pups have not gone in the water today but they are wandering around quite a bit, so they will probably be splashing around soon, I think the female pup might have put her flipper in for a moment but I’m not sure
  • One of the mothers came back very briefly, the tagged female, pink tag T562, who gave birth to the female pup on Jan 4th was here for maybe a couple hours then she went back into the water

Census, eagles, storms and elephants

Final exams are over so I will be posting more until I am out for winter break December 20th to January 3rd

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: From 0 – 40 SE over the last few days
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: from calm to huge waves during that last storm

Boats/Visitors

  • Not a lot of visitors lately
  • There were a couple of sailboats yesterday and a few ecotours, but not many

Maintenance

  • Running the generator more lately as is there is less sunlight
  • Still haven’t been able to pressure wash but the parts should be in when I get back from break and I can try to make the buildings white again

Ecological

  • Fewer sea lions than last week
  • Chunk is still the alpha but there are 3 other males on the island of varying sizes smaller than Chunk
  • There is currently 1 female elephant seal
  • a few green wing teal ducks took shelter here when it was storming
  • have spotted a neck banded sea lion, but no way to tell if he will still be here by the time I can people out here to help him

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 213
  • Steller Sea Lions – 192
  • Harbour Seal – 35
  • Elephant Seal – 4 male, 1 female
  • Cormorants – 207
  • Gulls – 233
  • Fox Sparrows – 12
  • Canada Geese – 21
  • Black Turnstones – 38
  • Eagle – 8
  • Raven – 1
  • Snow Bunting – 1
  • Oyster Catchers – 12
  • Harlequin Ducks – 10
  • Green Wing Teal – 6

Swiftsure

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-25 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • a few ecotours went by today
  • many sailboats for the swiftsure race
  • Guy came by with his family for a little visit

Ecological

  • looks to be yet another goose nest near the tank shed
  • the seagulls should be nesting very soon

Beautiful Weather

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 W
  • Sky: Clear and sunny
  • Water: Flat calm

Boats/Visitors

  • many boats going by today, ecotours, sailboats, fishing boats
  • Guy also came by to pick up the students that stayed in the student house lastnight

Ecological

  • about a dozen elephants, one male and the rest female
  • not too many sea lions around though

Saturday

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 SW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • a few ecotours went by today alone with a bunch of sailboats and fishing boats in this beautiful weather
  • also a few divers around the island

Ecological

  • about 9 female elephants and one young male, they were all in and out of the water today

 

Another Elephant Seal & Gale Force Winds

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: Light breezes throughout the day then very high, Gale force winds came in around 9 or 10 pm of up to 39 knots for an hour or two then died down to a steady 20-25 knots with rain.
  • Sky: cloudy with some sun
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy during the day then very rough throughout the night.

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw 6 or 7 sail boats out together and 1 diving boat
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Had a group of 12-14 Black Turnstones munching grass together in front of the house.
  • Our resident elephant seal Bernard has been joined by another large male elephant seal. They seem to be keeping their distance from each other for now.

Other

  • The view of the Olympic Mountains has been beautiful and clear these last few days. A nice change from the cloak of fog and clouds that often cover them from sight.

 

Kayak Symposium Visitors

Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knots West
  • Sky: clear and sunshine!
  • Water: 1′ chop
  • What a wonderful last full day on the island for the students!

Ecological

  • The elephant seals put on a show for our visitors.

DSC_6467

DSC_6466

Maintenance

  • The four of us ran the derrick to make sure the thing is still operating smoothly.
  • Tazi and Maya cleaned the solar panels.
  • I did some algae removal.

Boats

  • Kyle came out in Second Nature with two groups of kayak people.
  • Several sailboats were still returning past Race Rocks this morning and even into the afternoon.
  • Apparently they were participating in the 73rd annual Swiftsure International Yacht Race. What a wonderful activity!
  • The distance of the race is 159 miles, and as of right now (Sunday evening) there are still a few boats making their way back towards Race Rocks.

Visitors

  • Two groups of folks from the kayak symposium came out to Race Rocks (about 16 in total).
  • Maya played us some guitar from the roof of the desalinator bunker.

The Grand Sailboat Regatta

Weather

  • Visibility: 8 miles in the early morning, 15 later on
  • Wind: 15-20 knots East, then North, then West
  • Sky: foggy and overcast, then sunny, then overcast
  • Scattered raindrops throughout the day
  • Water: mostly calm, with swells in the afternoon

DSC_6437

Ecological

  • Maya and Tazi conducted 4 intertidal transects today.
  • Studying an intertidal transect involves measuring out a certain distance from a peg, and then documenting the different species found every 0.5 metre.
  • In some transects the 0.5 metres are measured by water elevation; in others simply by distance.
  • By comparing the species found in every zone of the transect with transect data from previous decades, you can see the change in intertidal ecosystems due to climate change.
  • We saw a California Sea Lion with the brand U374 and another with a tracker.
  • While most of the gull eggs all look the same, one particular egg is quite different.

Maintenance

  • Maya and I ran the fire pump in the morning.
  • This added a few inches to the cistern.
  • We removed the old Canadian flag and hoisted a fresh one.
  • Tazi and I removed some algae.
  • Ali whacked away at the thistles.
  • We cleaned the solar panels.

Boats

  • Over 150 sailboats from Victoria passed by Race Rocks in the late morning on their way towards the Western horizon.
  • Some of them started to return as late as 22:30.
  • The colours of their sales included: red, blue, white, fluorescent yellow, green, purple, black, orange, and many combinations of all of the above.
  • Some standouts included the Miles Davis sail and the Union Jack.
  • I couldn’t stop taking photos and ended up with dozens. Below is a selection of the best.
  • One coastguard zodiac and a search and rescue boat appeared to be accompanying the sailboats.
  • Several eco-tours came by, including one Eagle Wings tour that drove through the South Channel.
  • Passing through the South Channel is prohibited as the width is too narrow.