Daily Archives: Thursday,January 7, 2021

January 2nd Wildlife Census

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Weather: We’re getting that classic winter weather now: gusty winds and intermittent rain. A few moments of >30knots.

Visitors/Traffic: Lots of boats coming by to view the sea lions. A dive boat checking out the island and 3 large whale watching boats coming up to the jetty.

Ecological Notes: The newborn elephant seal (Cheermeister) is doing great! Doubling in size for the first several days, and now he’s just a fat little seal. Another female elephant seal has shown up all fat and ready to birth. We had a pretty epic battle between the 2 large male elephant seals on December 27th, and since then the 2 males have been sleeping off their battle damage.

Another day where the island is full of eagles and we’re seeing much less other birds.

Census:

Gulls: 290

Cormorants: 22

Eagles: 22

Elephant Seals: 5

Steller Sea Lions: 1

California Sea Lions: 11

Turnstones: 11

Harlequin Ducks: 11

Oystercatchers: 23

The flock of Oystercatchers seem to come and go. I wonder where they are when they’re not on the island?

Elephant Seals are really cute.

Why do Elephant Seals have these huge noses? So they can look all cool after battling for dominance. Just a theory.

For having only a few prominent teeth I’m pretty impressed with the amount of damage these Elephant Seals can cause.

Baby Cheermeister is FAAAAT.

The loser of the ‘Jetty Battle’ actually wobbled away with less damage than the winner. Will there be a new beachmaster next year?

Elephant Seal Pup Growth – Day by day

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The first Elephant Seal pup of the 2021 birthing season came on December 22 2020, and began it’s 23 days of nursing the day after (it took him awhile to figure out how to nurse). Elephant seal pups only have a couple of weeks to get big enough and healthy enough to survive alone after their moms wean them and abandon them on Race Rocks; which means their life is essentially just to feed, nap, and snuggle with their moms. It’s hard to show how impressive it is to see how fast they put on weight, with the pup doubling in size over the first few days. Here’s a video of the growth of ‘Cheermeister’ over his first 12 days of life.

https://youtu.be/ltMsnNRYTmU
   
Also see other posts on elephant seal pups born at Race Rocks, the most northerly pupping colony for e-seals on the Pacific coast:  https://www.racerocks.ca/tag/pup/