November 20th

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  ranged from 5-35 NW throughout the day
  • Sky: partly cloudy, got a good amount of sunlight
  • Water: went from flat to 2 metre waves to flat throughout the day

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few boats cruise by and a couple visitors to install a new dryer

Ecological

  • same amount of sea lions, no elephant seals yet

Snorkelling and Jet Skis

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 SE
  • Sky: cloudy for the most part, bit of sun came through
  • Water: very calm today

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few boats cruise by, alone with some free divers and a pair on jet skis, that I went said hi to when they were by the jetty

Ecological

  • same amount of sea lions, no elephant seals yet

 

November 17th

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-15 SW
  • Sky: cloudy for the most part, bit of sun came through
  • Water: a bit choppy today

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few boats cruise by

Ecological

  • same amount of sea lions, no elephant seals yet

Notes

  • looks like the wind is going to pick up again tonight

Census

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 NE
  • Sky: cloudy throughout the day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw a couple ecotours cruise by

Ecological

  • still more sea lions than I expected to still be here, no elephant seal either.

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 343
  • California Sea Lions, 152
  • Harbour Seals – 13
  • Gulls – 317
  • Cormorants – 119
  • Harlequinn Ducks – 18
  • Black Turnstones – 24
  • Eagle – 1

November 15th

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 NW
  • Sky: partly cloudy most of the day, had some sun
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a couple ecotours cruise by

Ecological

  • more sea lions, with the calmer weather today

Notes

  • got some solar energy today, still ran the generator to keep the battery charge up

November 14th

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-15 SE
  • Sky: cloudy all day
  • Water: choppy, less than a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • saw a couple ecotours cruise by earlier

Ecological

  • significantly less sea lions, will update the census on thursday

Notes

  • had a little power outage at the college and didn’t have wifi here so I did not do the log report yesterday

November 11th

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  10-15 NE
  • Sky: cloudy
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had some ecotours

Ecological

  • some sea lions in front of the house
  • one sea lions with a neckband
  • also about a dozen harlequin ducks

 

Plectrophenax nivalis: Snow Bunting –The Race Rocks Taxonomy

Laas Parnell took these pictures of Snow Buntings on November 9, 2017. Pam Birley had been the only one to take pictures of them previously in 2005 and 2007 on the remote cameras at Race Rocks.

This is a very pale Snow Bunting . Snow Buntings are uncommon around Victoria and best seen in late fall-early winter, so any bunting in February is unusual. This is only the fourth Snow Bunting record for the Rocky Point Bird Observatory checklist. The last picture is a poor image through a blurry remote camera 5 housing,but the only one we have so far of a male snow bunting which was taken by Pam in March 2007.
Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Sub-Phylum Vertebrata
Class Aves
Order Passerifomes
Family Emberizidae
Genus Plectrophenax
Species nivalis
Common Name: Snow Bunting
Other Members of the Class Aves at Race Rocks.


Images of Snow buntings by Laas Parnell–Ecoguardian at Race Rocks

taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.
Garry Fletcher