Monthly Archives: December 2020

Christmas Bird Counts 2017-present year

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Records for 2017 to 2020–
THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT AT RACE ROCKS
This data below may be highlighted, copied and pasted to an open EXCEL file. It will then be usable for statistical manipulations and graphing exercises.Some of the records reflect seabirds observed on the trip from Bentinck Island out while on the boat. Due to inclement weather ( that means a wind above 15 knots from the north East usually, ) In 2018 and 2019  observations were carried out from Great Race Rock Island only, and the surrounding area visible from there.
Linked below are the count returns by year. Included are some of the photographs taken of the members by those who were able to make it out for the counts, –Garry Fletcher

See this link for all past bird counts 

2020_ Matthew and Courtney Cameron

2019- Nick Townley ( stormy- observed from land only)

2018- Alex Fletcher (stormy , observed from land only)

2017- Kim Beardmore

 

SPECIES 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025  
Double Crested Cormorant 10 20 208 10 –
Brandt’s Cormorant’s  14 50 ? 750
Pelagic Cormorant
 18 75 59 20
Common Murre 1* 3500 0 25
Rhinocerous Auklet 0 4 0 0
Black Oystercatcher 42 24 4 0
Black Turnstone 59 38 42 50
 Surfbird 0 0 18 0
Dunlin 0 0 0 6
Ruddy Turnstone 0 0 0 0
Sanderling 0 0 0 0
Pigeon Guillemot 10 0 0 30
Marbled Murrelet 0 0 0 0
Ancient Murrelet 0 90 0 0
Pacific Loon 0 40 0 0
Common Loon 2 1 0 0
Red Throated Loon 0 1 0 0
Canada Goose 0 12 0 5
Harlequin Duck 10 10 6 0
Long-tailed duck 0 0 0 0
Bufflehead 0 0 0 0
Surf Scoter 55 4 0 0
Common Goldeneye 0 0 0 0
White winged Scoter 0 3 0 1
Red-breasted merganser 18* 2 0 0
Common Merganser 0 0 0 0
Hooded Merganser 0 0 0 0
Red-necked grebe 0 0 0 0
Horned Grebe 1 0 0 0
Harlequin Duck 10 10 6 5
Mew Gull 14 800 48 3
Thayer’s (Iceland) Gull 8 150 281 75
Herring Gull 0 0 0 2
Ring-billed Gull 0 0 0 0
Heermann’s Gull 0 0 0 0
Iceland Gull 0 0 0 0
California Gull 0 0 0 0
Western Gull 0 0 0 1
WesternXGlaucous-Winged Gull 2 1 0 0
Glaucous-Winged Gull
69
250
0
10
Harlequin Duck 10 10 6 0
Bonapartes Gull
0
0
0
0
Rhinocerous Auklet 0 0 0 0
Merlin 0 0 0 0
Peregrine Falcon 0 0 0 0
Bald Eagle, Immature. 0 0 5 ?
Bald Eagle, adult 4 10 25 15
Killdeer 0 0 0 0
Rock Sandpiper 0 0 0 0
Western Sandpiper 0 0 0 0
Black Bellied Plover. 0 0 0 0
Red-necked Phalarope 0 0 0 0
American Pipit 0 0 0 0
European Starling 0 0 0 0
Song Sparrow 0 1 0 0
Fox Sparrow 0 0 1 0
Savannah Sparrow 0 0 0 0
Snow Bunting 0 1 0 0
North Western Crow 0 0 0 0
Raven 0 2 2 1
Brown Pelican 0 0 0 0
Great Blue Heron 0 0 0 0
SPECIES 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025

Christmas Bird Count at Race Rocks 2020

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Today was the annual Christmas bird count. Martin Stewart provided the transportation on the boat Ecosphere for Matt and Courtney Cameron to go out to Race Rocks Ecological reserve from Pedder Bay with Garry Fletcher. 

Observations were done from the marine a out through Pedder bay and then we docked at Race Rocks to be met by Courtney the Ecoguardian.  We had only a brief window of time, probably an hour  there before the wind started to pick up from the North East, but that was adequate to get a good count of the birds on shore.

Pam Birley from England took these photos on camera 5 :

Striking in their abundance were the and Pelagic and Brandts Cormorants. On leaving we circled around the South side of the islands and out past West Rock where there were also large numbers of cormorants.  From West Race Rocks we went over to Emdyck Pass behind Bentinck Island and found another large gathering of Cormorants, and some alcids.  The other bird that seemed much more frequent than previous years were the Black Turnstones

On the island, after stepping carefully past a male elephant seal on the jetty, we were able to view the new pup and mother elephant seal with the large male up on the lawn by the house. 

The following three sets of data are from their e-bird posts,

Continue reading →

December 23 Wildlife Census with a new baby Elephant Seal

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Weather: A bit of light sleet/snow, light winds ~15knots.

Visitors/Traffic: 2 Whale watching boats, and a supply run by Gregg.

Ecological Notes: Baby Elephant Seal born last night! Around 22:00 at night our resident female (pink tag #2, also referred to as ‘Beverly’). The Beachmaster was present for the birth, and initially I thought he might be looking to kill the pup to force the female into estrus. Nope, just an observer, sniffing and mouthing the newborn pup, but no damage caused.

Newborn Elephant Seal Pup, which we’ve taken to calling ‘Cheermeister’.

Lots of eagles present in today’s Census,  which may be related to the reduced number of birds counted.

Census:

Gulls: 164

Cormorants (mostly Brant’s): 430

Eagles: 13

Elephant Seals: 5

Steller Sea Lions: 329

California Sea Lions: 464

Turnstones: 22

Green Wing Teal: 4

Long Tailed Duck: 5

Canada Geese: 2

Steller Sea Lion haulout to the SE of the lighthouse.

It’s a Cormorant party.

Eagles on the island mean that a lot of the birds are choosing to be elsewhere.

Any space without Sea Lions and eagles mean the birds can really stretch their wings.

Elephant Seals pick the weirdest spots to sleep. Sometimes it’s inconvenient for maintenance, and sometimes it just looks gross. Soaking your wounded nose in a poopy puddle? Gross.

 

Baby Elephant Seal for the Holidays

Image

Newborn Elephant Seal pup! After a night of squawking we were met in the morning by this adorable squishy new baby. It makes the cutest sounds!

Weather: 2 days of over 30 knots. Sleet on the afternoon of December 21st after a morning of NW bringing lots of logs into the jetty.

Visitors: 4 tourism boats coming out to view wildlife. Coast Guard doing maneuvers in the crazy currents. Navy ship and submarine out for a jaunt.

 

Maintenance: Greg got the desalinator going. We got Ocean Network Canada’s equipment up and running, I’m told it measures the tides and currents using radar?! Pretty cool. Maybe the subject of a blog post already?

Wildlife: The Elephant Seals showed up in the first week of December, so we were expecting a few months of them hanging out on Race Rocks before anything significant happened. Just kidding! The lone female on the island (pink tag #2) gave birth at around 10pm on December 21st after a chilly afternoon with a bit of snow.

Baby Elephant Seal #1. Could be last years pup? They are thought to return to their same birthing/moulting grounds.

The big male that has been posted up with the female since the beginning of December seems to be pretty protective of the new baby, making sure the rowdy teen male seal knows he is not welcome around the female and pup. There is another large male hanging out next to the generator building, and a small male (possibly last years pup) was hanging out here for a few weeks before heading back into the ocean.

The big male chased the female around the island for a few days before she found her favourite spot and posted up. Turns out those rocks right in from of her is the best nursery.

Momma Seal: Pink tag #2

Having a well deserved rest with her newborn the the giant male stands guard for other males.

We’ve still got lots of California and Steller Sea Lions hanging out on the island/jetty, with lots of bait balls and kelp rafts drifting by. There’s been at least 2 humpbacks feeding between Race Rocks and Edye Point for a few days.

 

Only 1 gull has died in the last week, and was pretty quickly eaten by a couple of eagles.

Because every Race Rocks blog should feature a lighthouse photo.

 

December 18 2020 Wildlife (Census)

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Visitors/Traffic: A few whale watching boats and small fishing vessels came out to look at the sea lions.

Ecological Notes: One new observation of a gull acting weird before dying and being eaten by eagles. Currently there are 4 elephant seals on Race Rocks: One dominant male, one submissive male, one juvenile male, and one pregnant female. Looks like this female showed up a little earlier than last year, which may be an attempt to birth and nurse in peace before other mothers show up.

Census:

Gulls: 318

Cormorants (mostly Brant’s): 816

Eagles: 3

Elephant Seals: 4

Steller Sea Lions: 330

California Sea Lions: 144

Turnstones: 11

 

 

A Diver and Dying Seagulls

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Weather:

  • Visibility 10-20 NM, great visibility especially in the few hours before sunset
  • Sky partially overcast
  • Wind 5-15 knots W
  • Calm seas for the most part, other than strong ebbs and floods

Visitors: Some pleasure craft over the past days. There have been some supply deliveries as well as a few visitors for various reasons. Today we saw what looked to be a private vessel enter the reserve and put a diver in the water. The dive lasted less than ten minutes and when the diver was back in the boat, they left quickly.

Ecological Notes: 

  • The elephant seals are all here still – the two large and two small ones from earlier in the week. The two larger seals and one of the smaller ones have hauled themselves up high onto the island, and the other smaller seal looks to be more comfortable closer to the water. Look for them on the webcam!
  • We’ve had a few more strange seagull deaths with the same symptoms: gradual weakening (reluctance to fly and a lethargic walk), separation from the rest of the seagulls, eventually progressing to being unable to fly, and finally silent coughing/choking movements followed by death.
  • Two orcas spotted on Monday, behind north rock and heading east.
  • There’s still a heavy sea lions presence, mainly on the jetty and the surrounding rocks, and around the base of the lighthouse.
  • Mid week we had around 20 eagles in the area and were able to catch a few quick pictures of them in flight!

 

Clear Skies + Elephant Seals! (census)

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky mostly clear, overcast in late afternoon
  • Wind 0-10 knots N
  • Sea state: calm, glassy!

Visitors: A small number of pleasure crafts trickling through. Only a handful of tourism vessels over the weekend and a few through the late week.

Ecological Notes: 

  • This week has brought some of our favorite visitors to Race Rocks: elephant seals! We’ve been joined by two huge male elephants seals as well as two younger pups that look to be only a year or so old. Unfortunately we haven’t seen any tagged elephant seals yet so that’s all we know for now.
  • We’ve still been spotted seagulls displaying odd behavior. We’ve noticed a total of 7 over the past month.
  • Whale sightings have slowed down now, seemingly as the weather gets colder and salmon runs slow. We have still been seeing around one per day but the sightings are less consistent.
  • Today we noticed a tiny sea lion pup nursing! We mostly only see male sea lions on race rocks, but recently we’ve been noticing very small sea lions arriving. It’s hard to tell the sex of sea lions from a distance so this was the first female we’ve identified in the crowd.
  • The bald eagles have continued to visit to fish and hunt gulls in the early to late morning. They particularly like to sit under the tower containing camera 5, sometimes up to 10 at once! The color variation throughout their different life stages is particularly striking.

Census:

  • 54 Harbour seals
  • 177 Stellar sea lions
  • 233 California sea lions
  • 4 Elephant seals
  • 275 Brandt’s + pelagic cormorants (too far away to distinguish)
  • 6 Double-crested cormorants
  • 5 Surfbirds
  • 3 Dunlins
  • 25 Black turnstones
  • 12 Harlequin ducks
  • 7 Bald eagles
  • 290 Thayer’s gulls

The Problem with Ocean Fouling/succession-

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When installing equipment underwater in a high current zone where the water is laden with nutrients from upwelling as it is at Race Rocks, it becomes obvious very soon that any new substrate placed underwater becomes an instant habitat for the settlement of many invertebrate and algal species. For this page I have brought together different examples from the work we did over the years at Race Rocks.  . It should be noted that the word “fouling”is a rather perjorative term, seen from the point of view of a natural process interfering with human wishes.  However,  it simply represents ecological succession, a perfectly natural event in a highly productive environment, and too bad that it inconvieniences us!

This video from 2001 shows what the condition of the growth of life was on a sensor bar that we installed in water at 8 meters depth just off the Jetty at Race Rocks: The sensors were for monitoring Oxygen, salinity, ph, and turbidity. Without constant attention by our divers getting accurate data from sensors like these over a long term would not be possible. This video was taken after three months in the water .

 

 

 

In September of 2011 we ended the experimental Tidal energy Project at Race Rocks.  This file has images of the turbine covered in fouling organisms when it was raised for the final time: 

 

 

 

Examination of the tidal energy installation after being installed for 6 months

 

 

 

The engineers concern for the kind of materials they were going to use in constructing the turbine were addressed by having the Pearson College Divers install a series of succession plates that could be monitored for growth over several months.

 

Video inspection done by Chris Blondeau on turbine inspection before removal, June, 2011 The growth of Invertebrtates is quite incredible. Since ther is little opportunity for predators like starfish to browse on this column, growth is unimpeded. This led us to decid that the i meter wide .. 15 metre high column should remain in place after the turbine was removed as such it has turned out to be such a unique  habitat.

 

Another example of succession is evident in the way that kelp attaches to a solid substrate and can end up in modifying the environment. In this case moving rocks from ocean to shore.

 

Measurement Exercise

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Today we had a request from Meghan Byrne, a 6th grade science teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District. She was doing a lesson with her students on size and scale and she was interested in using the following picture from this blog of the elephant seal measuring device – and letting students determine its length.

 

 

 

So I thought that would be a good exercise to include here for school students. Ecoguardian Mara has provided the following photos of the boat ramp rail so you can now calculate the length of the small elephant seal. 

Be sure to calculate the length of the Elephant seal in both centimeters and in inches.  Then you can also convert it to Metres and Feet . 

Mara sent another picture of a larger male, the brackets on the rail can just be made out so calculate his size.