Monthly Archives: November 2013

helicopter and new seawater sample methods

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Cloudy with light wind in the morning. Calm seas. Rain. Moderate NE winds in the afternoon. Low East swell.

The helicopter landed  around 1000 hrs
It came in from the East. Circled Greater Race once. Then on it’s second trip around it nosed in from the South-East and landed on the helicopter landing pad at 1007.
As best as I can tell there were 3 people inside it.
They stayed for less than 5 minutes. The guy in the back at the sliding door took pictures of the lighthouse. In the photograph you can see he’s only using his cell phone.
The number on the side was 437.

Our seawater sample methods have changed as of tomorrow. Our contact at IOS informed me that we will now only be using the digital YSI salinity and temperature meter. And once a month we are supposed to collect a sample using the old method for quality control and to monitor any measurement drift on the digital meter

P1010457

YSI digital salinity and temperature meter. Provided by the Institute of Ocean Sciences

Off station from 1130 to 1330
Jamieson is back on the big island
-got gas
-took in garbage and regular recycling
-took in electronics for recycling
-worked on SOP

Spring tides

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Cloudy with scattered showers. Calm in the morning moderate West wind in the afternoon.
Tour boats: 2

There were four eagles cruising around the reserve in the morning.
The sea lions spent the previous night and day on the East side of the island, just bellow my bedroom.
November 16th, 17th, and 18th we have an 8.9 ft (2.7 m) tide. The high tide on the 16th is called a perigean spring tide (as in the tide is “springing forth,” not the season). These tides occur when the moon is at it closest point in orbit to earth and the moon and the sun are lined up so that their gravitational pull is in the same direction; All of which results in some of the biggest tides of the year. There is an effort now to take photographs of areas and infrastructure that are strongly affected by Spring tides in order to better understand the potential impacts of sea level rise caused by climate . Search ‘king tide photo initiative” for more information.

-Cleaned keeper’s house basement
-Finished topping up water to battery bank
-Worked on SOPs
Jamieson is still out here

Desalinator Maintenance

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Strong W, SW, and S winds this morning. Strong W for the rest of the day. Rain.

Mike Cullen + apprentice came out to do maintenance on the desalinator.

Animal Census

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Clear sky. Moderate W winds.
1 Tour Boat

Animal Census
153 Gulls
474 Cormorants
27 Canada Geese
2 Cackling Geese
1 White Fronted Goose
4 Turnstones
6 Oyster Catchers
1 Elephant seal
58 Harbour Seals
498 California Sea lions
345 Stellar Sea lions

P1010455

Branded Stellar #8329

-prepped student house, but group cancelled
-pressure washed walkways
-cleaned and organized Boston Whaler

boat cradle

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The day started with moderate NE, and dropped to light variable SE. Low E swell in the am. Glassed off this evening. Scattered showers.

cradle
Erik dropped the new boat dolly/cradle off this afternoon. With some slight modifications, it came up the track just fine. Tomorrow we’ll see how the boat sits on it (fingers crossed).

 

 

 

[Daily Marine Conservation Link]
The area around Race Rocks is a Rockfish Conservation Area, which means that any type of fishing that could impact rockfish is prohibited. Established by DFO, there are over 100 sites on the BC coast. It is a complicated issue that involves many stakeholders and even more species. The debate is a heated one (as are all fisheries debates in this province) and, despite some level of protection, there is still concern regarding the risk to these long-lived and sensitive fish, as well as the habitat in which they live. Today’s link is an editorial about some of the conservation progress that has been made because the fisherman are concerned about the sustainability of the resource, and their livelihoods, to a point that they are voluntarily working with NGOs and the government.

 

 

eagle

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Moderate NE winds all day. 3 ft wind chop. Cloudy but no rain.
The students left yesterday, and some volunteers from the college made a brief photo stop when Chris came to pick them up.

There was a boat fishing illegally in the reserve this morning. It left before I could try to make radio contact.

Pam Birley’s Images of Race Rocks 2004-2013

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newportOn this page are links to the monthly photo diaries taken on the remote cameras at Race Rocks from 2004 to 2013  by the late Pam Birley of Leicestershire England These albums were due to her almost daily commitment for a decade.  She produced a valuable record of events with her unique screen captures from Camera 5 , Camera 1 and the underwater Camera 2.

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September, 2010 October, 2010 November,2010 December 2010
May, 2010 June 2010 July 2010 August 2010
January, 2010 February, 2010 March 2010 April 2010
September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December, 2009
May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009
January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009
December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008
August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008
January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008
January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007
May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007
September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 Dec. 2007
The full collection of previous monthly Race Rocks albums done by Pam Birley November 2004 to October 07 is now at: http://tinyurl.com/2adrsp

One of Pams first submissions to us was in this set of images of eagle predation in 2004

 

 

Bald Eagles in the Rain

 

 

 

 

Bad Hair Day for the Eagles

 

 

 

 

Pams images of  Snowy Owls were a first for Race Rocks

 

 

Feature Article on Pam Birley: From:  TheThunderbird.ca News, analysis and commentary by UBC Journalism students Former Pearson College student Marc-Fawcett-Atkinson and Annie Rueter have published the following article in  about our most consistent contributor to the website, Pam Birley of Leicester England. B.C. wildlife 

 

Live Wildlife for your Living Room
ref: Anderson, Charlie,
The Province, Vancouver, B.C. ( Sunday, Nov.21, 2004
“Long Distance Monitoring, the effective Citizen Science of Pam Birley” has been has been published on page 10 of the December 2010 Issue of the Friends of Ecological Reserves log.

Pam and Dennis  Birley vist Race Rocks in 2008

 

 

This link brings up all the posts involving Pam Birley