Resurrected with found and modified pieces, this old bench graces the front of the science house now with a broad panorama for sunset viewing.

Dawn broke in reds and pinks heralding another glorious day. Early on there were feeble zephyrs from the southwest and east but the most obvious wind tell-tale on Race Rocks, the Canadian flag, hung limply most of the morning. Westerly breezes started in the early afternoon and developed into moderate breezes, late afternoon with gusts to 23 knots. The strong wind warning forecast is downgraded now to 15 to 20 knots westerly, overnight in the central Straits of Juan de Fuca and it is already dropping, as the sun sets.

No tour boats were observed in the Ecological Reserve although one hardtop sport-fishing boat cruised past the sea lions at a respectful distance and speed.

In the water new Bull Kelp are growing quickly, shooting to the surface buoyed by their float and photosynthesizing faster than any land plant.

Bull kelp, Nereocystis luetkeaena is growing fast now.

A Northern Elephant Seal visited the marine railway for a snooze on the falling tide this morning. It was a perfectly symmetrical ellipsoid. From the light tower another 16 elephant seals could be seen on Middle Rock. Two more in the shallows of Middle Rock, looked so much like smooth rocks draped in seaweed, that they had me fooled for a while. That makes 19 in total, a high count for me so far.

There have also been a lot of Bald Eagles present with a total of twelve individuals today. I have been trying to figure out what they are eating and have seen them chasing both gulls and geese.

Five of the twelve Bald Eagles on site today.

I have also seen some casualties, including three gull carcasses but they do not have the look of eagle food. The one in the photo above is completely pristine even after several days, with no trace of blood or predation.

Adult Bald Eagle feeding on fresh meat.

This evening the eagles caught and ate something but I could not tell what it was, there were no feathers at the site where they were dining but it may have been turned inside out (skinned). Four adults and two sub-adults fed off the one carcass.

Glaucous-winged gulls in their fine new feathers, are guarding their nesting territories but have not started nesting yet.

Alex continues to be my only visitor and we had a belated Easter dinner, highlighting delicious, fresh halibut. I wonder when the last time was, this kitchen had freshly jigged halibut? Alex resurrected a bench that was both broken and had missing parts. It now sits in front of the Science House with a view out to sea and east up the Strait.

The phone and Internet went off again last night and I didn’t realize it until late. The problem was different this time and required a UPS reset in the tower this morning. I am getting quite adept at restarting the weather system now and we also tried (again) to fix the wind direction indicator on the system. I had success getting the underwater camera going again but it really needs a good scrub. The desalinator filled up the water tank again, running on sunlight through the solar panels. I cleaned up the visitor sign-in cabinet a little and put in some fresh pamphlets about how the public can support Race Rocks through Pearson College.

Note this blog posted next day due to yet another failure of phone/Internet last night due to UPS overload in tower.