Monthly Archives: December 2013

Cold weather

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Friday morning the wind was blowing 25 NMPH NE and picked up throughout the day gusting to 40 NMPH in the evening with waves >5ft breaking on the jetty.  The wind brought cold weather from the interior with temperatures below 0 deg C.  A cold weather notice was issued by the Metchosin Fire Chief warning of windchill over night reaching below -15 deg C.  This morning temperature was -2.6 deg C, sunny, and winds had dropped by noon.  Sea water temp has fallen to 7.4 deg C today.

I ran heating coils on the lines out of the freshwater tank and into the main house. Kept a heater on low in the desalinator building overnight and shut off water to assist house and drained pipes.  No freeze up problems detected so far.

There was 1 dive boat and 1 ecotour boat in the reserve this afternoon.

Census yesterday (dec 6) at 11:00 from the tower:

47 California sea lions (2 sealions with plastic hoops lodged around their necks)
174 Stellar sea lions
2 harbour seals
5 elephant seals (on W rock, 1 male)
1 river otter
280 gulls
383 cormorants
2 Canada geese
1 raven
3 Eagles
1 Sparrow

Change of Guardian, Snow

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I got a ride out to Race Rocks today with Erik to start my winter shift.  Pedder Bay was covered in ice up to around the college’s main docks.  Courtney updated me on operating procedures and returned with Erik. There was supposed to be a chimney cleaner coming too but it has been snowing since this morning and it was too slippery.

Chunk was in the water by the jetty when we arrived and came up the ramp. He is so big that i thought it was the alpha male, Misery, at first. The scars, from getting chewed up by Misery, are visible on his back.

The snow stopped before sunset so I cleaned off the solar panels. The tilted panels were partly clear whereas the horizontal panels had accumulated about an inch of snow.

last day

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Clear skies. Strong NE winds. Cold

Despite the winter weather, it is still a busy place out here in the reserve. The female elephant seals are hauled out on Middle Rock. The male Elephant seal is next to the Science House. There were lot’s of Oyster catchers, and way more Cormorants then I was expecting. There are also still quite a few Sea lions (~470) in the reserve; mostly on the South side of Great Race and South Rocks. I finally got a decent picture of a Savannah Sparrow today; and the Sandpiper stopped long enough to get a good photo so I could finally ID it.

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Elephant seal!!

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Clear skies. Strong NE winds. 4-5ft wind waves this morning. The wind and the waves eased by the evening.

This weather is making my departure day a bit unsure, but it is totally worth it because it made the HUGE male elephant seal that’s been lounging on Middle Rock come over to Great Race. He spent the day on the grass next to the energy building. Whoa! He is way bigger than I thought. Despite his size, it is impossible to take him seriously with that massive nose. Since I have never been formally introduced to the Elephant seal I am assuming that this is the one that previous Eco-guardians named Chunk  because of the scars from Misery on his back.

See sparring in previous post https://www.racerocks.ca/2013/06/10/les-miserables/

At lunch time today the River otter was rolling around in the sun on the wood platform by the crane. I think it lives under the walkway.

-worked on SOPs
-Did a final shift-change tidy

winter has arrived

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Mostly clear skies. Strong West wind. Cold.
Gusted up to 50 kts last night. At dawn it snowed and hailed briefly, and was sunny and raining at the same time.
On top of being chained to the house, I had to lash the propane tanks together with a block of wood between them to keep them from banging into each other in the wind.

There was nothing to count for the Recreational Fishing count today.

A bald eagle visited Great Race briefly and I saw a River otter next to the tank shed.
There are still quite a few Sea lions on the South and East sides of the island.

-sent in my month end report
-sent seawater data to IOS
-took down electric fences
-organized tank shed
-edited SOPs
-cleaned Keeper’s House
 

November Seawater Data

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This month is the first month with the new seawater sampling method. After several months of trying out the YSI digital salinity and temperature meter our contact at IOS told us to just use that instrument. Once a month we are to collect a sample using the old method with the thermometers and hydrometer in order to track any drift on the digital meter and to be able to calibrate the data.

Institute of Ocean Sciences
Daily Seawater Temperature and Density Record Shore Station
Time Zone: PDT
Station Race  Rocks  Lightstation
Month: November Year: 2013
Observer: Lester B. Pearson  College  of  the  Pacific

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Mirounga angustirostris: Taxonomy and Image Index File

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 4 videos of the elephant seal birth in 2016

 

 

 

Announcement in the Log – Ecological reserves –Update on Elephant seals   Birth of this years elephant seal pup occurred as scheduled on January 14, 2016, same date as 2014.

The Jan 2015 pup was stillborn.

The posts for the follow-up of this pup are at   https://www.racerocks.ca/e-seal-pup-born/

All posts on elephant seals at Race Rocks from the website. All posts on elephant seal births at Race Rocks

Male

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