Exceptional weather those last days: no wind, flat sea, sun.
Young gulls get bigger than the adults maybe because of a fluffy undercoat. They are almost ready to fly for good and they even sometimes attack the adults. When we came back from Pearson College on the 10th we found a young goose dead on the side of the water-sampling house, almost inside the old tree boat. Now we have only four of them. First we couldn’t tell what was the story behind but after a closed look we discovered a very neat, clean hole in the neck. It was clear that the bird was not killed for food but had been attacked. It’s not sure but the gulls could have done it: a territorial conflict.
We saw in the distance going towards the open ocean a really huge barge charged with a 4 or 5 five floors building! Maybe it was for an oil platform somewhere in the coast. We never saw something big like this one before. Speaking about boats around Race Rocks we have counted around 20 Sea lions watchers each day. The Sea lions get slowly closer. They are so beautiful and some pretty big. We saw one with a flasher. A few ones have a green tag and one have a big number on its skin
Monthly Archives: August 2015
Animal Census
Glaucous –winged gulls: 285
Chicks: 130 to 150
Californian Sea lions: 120
Northern Sea lions: 70
Harbour Seals: 50+young ones
Pelagic Cormorant: 3
Oystercatchers: 4
Pigeons-Guillemot: 60
Western Sandpipers: 60to70
Whimbrel: 1
Eagle: 1
Geese: 5
Elephant Seal:0 But Courtney from Second Nature saw 1 small one on middle island
Flying geese and no more elephant seal.
West wind- 15 knots early- Forecast 25 on the afternoon – visibility 10 miles clear.At 5h30 Guy saw the family of 5 geese coming flying back from a trip somewhere.I was speaking about rough times between those gulls: we found out that one chick got a broken leg and I guess with small chance to survive. Finally we could go ashore and when we came back the elephant seal was not on the island. She left 2 days ago on the 5th so pretty sure she left too for good. End of the season for those nice companions!The seawater is getting colder under 12 degrees and the salinity around 32. Air is cool too especially in the morning between 14 and 15 degrees and less if it’s foggy
What is going on around the place?
Is something happening on the rock? Nothing. It ‘s what you could think from the tower top or from the seaplane that flies over almost everyday but at sea level it’s another story. Actually there is so much life by night and by day. Especially the nights are animated: We found 2 more dead chicken bodies, always at the same spot under the diesel tank, always killed the same way and left with all the guts fresh and bloody! Pretty disgusting! The Animal world is rough. We spotted some very violent attacks from adults gulls against chickens. The problem is when chicks run into a neighboring territory they get attacked and can be killed and now that they are trying to fly, they can’t control exactly where they land. When it’ s windy you can observe those flying practice everywhere. The wind helps them and some now manage to get 3 meters high in the air. 3 chicks spend all their day swimming in some shallow water, one parent checking from the rocks and there are there everyday but those are the only ones. Why not the others? Just a few Californian sea lions have landed on the main rock for now. The fence is ready anyway. We have been stock on Race rocks for a few days because of the wind but we kept busy and not bored. At 7:00PM we had 40knots but it slowed down at 26 knots at 8:00. Calm evening
Feeling like a fish in an aquarium
After an agitated night no more wind early in the morning. It has been a beautiful, sunny day. The light morning wind blew to 32 knots around 4:30 PM and was at 36 knots in the early evening and got down at only 30 knots at 9:30. It has been absolutely gorgeous here: the sea was at its best: a mix of blues, greens and white. We had closed to 40 watching boats around it’s why I said that we got the feeling of a fish in an aquarium but the day was so beautiful that it was great to share so much beauty. The smell coming from the Rocks around was amazingly strong! We still have one lonely little female Elephant seal .She has a white running nose. I guess it ‘s usual and means nothing serious.
Geese on the rock
Like yesterday it has been foggy early in the morning so good for us:damp solar panel and quicker job. 4 Californian sea lions were on the jetty in the morning so we prepared the electricity gate and everything is now ready to work. The forecast was wind between 25 and 35 for the evening.
Many chicken have been practicing their flying exercises and it ‘s funny to see the oldest one closed to the youngest; maybe 3 weeks difference between the 2. We have a geese issue: I discovered 2 days ago that they were drinking in the water bucket under the solar panel. The problem is that we have found a real mess around the diesel tank even if the spot had been cleaned with water. And the worst it’s new geese arrived late in the afternoon. We wondered if those one were not the other family that was here in June? Any way maybe the brown bucket will be empty. Too bad we love those busy creatures!
34 knots around 7:30PM and the forecast for the 3rd: very windy. Interesting to have a look on the website: windyty .com
Very busy those rocks!
Forecast of gale warning going to 35 knots late in the afternoon. Choppy sea. Very foggy to 9:30AM.I think that we never had so much traffic around as today: More than 30 whale watching boats, 2 diving boats with 6 divers each time, 2 kayaks and a plane over and you could see a big number of fishing boats especially around Sooke .Guy changed the winch handle of the boat trailer and he went on filling up the seawater cistern for 5 hours.We were almost cold! Hard to believe that it was so warm off island when we went a day ago.The last elephant seal is still here sleeping or swimming around.