January 17th Census

Looking South from to the Lighthouse towards the Elwha.

Weather: Overcast morning, with a sunny afternoon. Winds 15-25knots. Big storm on January 11th that blew our doors and windows open.

Visitors/Traffic: After a week of no visitors we got 4 boats today: a whale whatching boat, 2 small fishing boats and a yellow sailboat that was very interested in getting in close to the jetty.

Ecological Notes: Immediately after the last birth a new female showed up on the island (January 11th). Cheermeister’s mom left him on January 12th (21 days of nursing) after making with the Beachmaster 76 times over 3 days. I didn’t inspect every event, so the total could higher than that, but it was an impressive feat. The Beachmaster has shown no interest in any of the other females. There are still 2 large males on the island, with the Beachmaster (previously referred to as Bernard) staying with the females and the other male hanging out around our compost.

The new seal gave birth last night, bringing our total seal pups to 4!

Jocelyn gave birth to her pup last night with lots of shouting and fanfare.

Elephant Seal flippers look so ridiculous when they’re born, just oversized and floppy. Kinda like puppy paws.

Tons of eagles on the island this morning, which usually coincides with a reduction in other birds counted.

Cheermeister: fat and alone. I don’t understand how he still gets fatter after being weaned.

The Beachmaster checking if anyone is interested in mating yet.

Census:

Gulls: 136

Cormorants: 360

Eagles: 40

Turnstones: 13

Elephant Seals: 9 [2 bulls, 3 females, 4 pups]

Steller Sea Lions: 142

California Sea Lions: 155

Harbour Seals: 6

 

Peace descends over the nursery. Seriously though, Elephant Seals are soooo loud.

Bonham over drumming next to the compost where the Beachmaster can’t find him.

A Little More Rain

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  5-15 W
  • Sky: cloudy all day with little breaks of sunshine
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had quite a few ecotours cruise by today

Ecological

  • nothing new, approximately 300 sea lions on island, maybe more

Notes

  • Finally now that it has rained a bit more I can start pressure washing pathways and buildings, clean things up a bit

Windy Day

Weather

  • Visibility:15 Miles
  • Wind:  20-30 NW today
  • Sky: cloudy today with bits of sunshine
  • Water: choppy at least a metre at one point

Boats/Visitors

  • Some ecotours braved the ind and came around today

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around and a bird I have not identified yet but included photos

Notes

  • Very windy today and even a little bit rain but not as much as we would’ve liked

Caught in the Fog

Weather

  • Visibility: from 0-15 throughout the day, mostly 0
  • Wind:  10-15 SW
  • Sky: overcast in the morning caught in the fog most of the day and overcast again around 5:30pm
  • Water: choppy less than a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Some ecotours today

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around

Notes

  • My fog horn was going off for hours today
  • ran the desalinator a bit, trying to get back up to a full tank
  • the electric fence was pretty tangled today but I got it back up

Sun and Fog

Weather

  • Visibility: 0 Miles this morning, the fog horn was going off for a good portion of the morning but I am getting a very clear and beautiful sunset now
  • Wind:  10-15 SW which went up and down slightly throughout the day but around 10ish knots
  • Sky: thick fog for a bit and then it cleared right up in the afternoon
  • Water: pretty flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a few ecotours came by today

Ecological

  • The unspecified birds are still around and I have determined them to be black turnstones, however it is weird to see such a high number of them at once so it is possible there are some other species of surfbird mixed in there too

Notes

  • Had some power issues today, hopefully get everything fixed tomorrow and the dryer won’t die on me halfway through drying my laundry

Lazy Day

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  10-15 SW
  • Sky: overcast some rain
  • Water: pretty flat throughout the day

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours came by today

Ecological

  • Definitely more sea lions everyday plus that one female elephant seal that is sticking around

Notes

  • Puttered around today, almost have a full water tank again, and enjoyed taking photos of the frequently napping sea lions
  • Now that there is more cloud cover the solar panels aren’t bringing in a lot of energy so I do need to run the generator to run the desalinator

Foggy Day

Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles sometimes less throughout the day
  • Wind:  10-15 SW sometimes a bit lighter sometimes a bit stronger
  • Sky: Cloudy this morning for a bit and then foggy for awhile, cleared up in the afternoon now you can see some blue sky and sunshine
  • Water: mostly flat a little choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a special visit at 6:30 this morning, the Parliament Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Youth dropped by for a quick visit

Ecological

  • Have to update my census, I saw an elephant seal this morning, a young female
  • the unspecified birds in the photo from yesterday are a type of gull that I still have not identified
  • There appears to be more sea lions everyday

Census Day

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

Sept 3, 4, 5 and 6th

I am back on Race Rocks and am very happy to be here, I had some log in trouble so this post will be for the past few days.

Weather,

On the third it was nice and sunny with little breeze, it was so nice I could run the desalinator without the generator. Started getting cloudy the next couple days and this morning the fog horn went off for a few minutes.

Ecological

I will be doing the census tomorrow but so far the number of sea lions seem to be growing, I have not seen any elephant seals, the harbour seal are right in there with the sea lions and I saw a river otter or two running around last night.

Other

Plenty of whale watchers coming around everyday, a couple sailboats and other than that the DnD seem to be blasting consistently which the sea lions aren’t too happy about.

That sums up my first few days back, I will be doing the census tomorrow and here are a few pictures from the last couple days.

Uneventful Weather: Perhaps a Small Blessing.

The weather at Race Rocks was spectacularly uneventful today. The barometer creeped down, little by little all day, to end not much lower than it started, at 2018 hPa. The sky was overcast with a bit of drizzle from time to time. Winds were light and at ground level the wind never got over 10 km/hr. The whole thing fizzled out into a patchy fog as darkness fell.

I didn’t see any tour boats in the Ecological Reserve today other than the Dive Boat from Ogden Point. There were plenty of sport-fishers, but all outside the reserve, trying to catch halibut. The currents are so strong here that they have to anchor to fish a specific spot and it looks like it can be challenging.

There were over 100 Pigeon Guillemots here today and it was a treat to watch them in their new, bright plumage as they bobbed and dove in the currents. The Glaucous-winged gulls are also looking very dapper in their new feathers and they seem to be spending a lot of time head dipping and bill raising and generally shuffling around looking like they are biding their time for the perfect alignment of day length and the Milky Way for nesting. Bald Eagles, two adults and sub-adult were hunting on Great Race today and they would make the gulls all lift off from time to time. That was the big excitement of the day. It was generally just a blissful sort of day.

My student visitors left in the late morning, picked up by Chris Blondeau in Second Nature. It was such a treat to have them on the island for my first few days. I felt lucky to have such an auspicious start. These students may be humble but they are really very special. I found out during our safety briefing that the five young ladies from Greenland, Guatemala, Quebec and young man from New Brunswick, were collectively trained as fire fighters, first-aid responders and counsellors, as part of their duties at Pearson College. These young people have my respect and are really using education as “a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.” When I asked them what made their stay on the rock special and why it should be maintained as part of Pearson College, they mentioned things like peacefulness, quiet, nature, hopefulness, the importance of the marine protected area. They also said how great it is to just get away and how lucky they felt, to be able to come to such a special and beautiful place.

As we said our goodbyes on the jetty, they presented me with a hand-drawn thank you card and a can of Maple Syrup from Quebec. How sweet! There is something about Maple Syrup that is beyond delicious.

I did the regular chores today, getting back into the routine of spot checks, VHF monitoring, seawater sampling, washing solar panels, clearing walkways, running the generator and generally fighting entropy. I also managed to clear a few pernicious, waterlogged chunks of wood that were blocking the marine railway, which was really satisfying. It was fun to use the pee-vee and pike pole and I managed to stay mostly dry.