Exciting Visitors shows the feed is here!

What a day it was! Overcast and a little drizzle and I do my regular morning routine of firing up the Generator, running the Desalinater all before breakfast. As I finish up restocking the fire, eating and my coffee at my now favourite spot the big living room window. I look out and scan the horizon, there towards the west I just catch a glimpse of that distinct hump. I think before it even finished going under I was up, boots on and cameras in hand running towards the west.

 

 

Sea lions chased after the 4 Humpbacks and the whales seemed annoyed by them, splashing at them. It was very entertaining to watch as the whales moved close along the western shore of the Great Race Rocks, and down to the south.

T041s Visit!

Then that afternoon, as I do my regular Electric Fence fixing and Sea Lion Wrangling, I noticed some of the whale watching tours lounging north of North Rocks. I head up to the Northern Shore (of course with cameras) to just catch a glimpse at a couple dorsal fins before they disappear. Many minutes later as I’m looking around, all of the sudden I hear the PUFF of one, directly below me in Middle Channel.

5 Orca cruise back and fourth throughout the channel for roughly 10 minutes (time stood still so that’s a very rough guess) Until they headed back out into the far north and vanished from sight. The 5 orca are identified as the T041s.

 

 

One of the most interesting parts about the day, was the way the sea lions acted when the Humpback were here compared to the Orca. The Humpback the sea lions were engaging with, playing or chasing, however when the orca arrived it was chaos and panic. The sea lions all congregated together while the orca were around, mean while when the humpbacks were near, they each just did their own thing.

 

Facility Work:

Generator

Desalinator

Fixed Electric Fences multiple times

Sea Lion Wrangling

Trial run of putting Ropes up around the lighthouse to slow the sea lions.

 

 

 Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Environment Canada forecast:

https://weather.gc.ca/marine/region_e.html?mapID=02

Officially Sea Lion Season!

BONUS! 2- Spectacular Rainbows!

Up before sunrise and already feeling a good flow to my morning routine. Of course coffee! Light up the woodstove and head out to start the generator. Today I skipped the Desalinater as our cistern (where we store our water to run through the Desalinater) needs a top up. The rain scheduled for today and tonight with add a little and then when Greg is out we plan to get the pump in the ocean to refill.

Today is Animal Census Day! The Lighthouse is the perfect perch to count the wildlife among the southern rocks and spot the Sea lions that are difficult around the edges of Great Race Rocks.

After this mornings routine I grabbed my journal, clicker and headed out to start counting the animals at sunrise accompanied by low tide.

Low tide is a great time to count the seals lounging on the surrounding rocks.

Harbor Seals lounging at Low tide on the South Islands

Through out the day I spent wandering the out skirts of Great Race Rocks and up the lighthouse a few times.

Black Turnstones seemed the most active today out of the others I’ve been here, as well as the fox sparrows.

Black Turnstone

Fox Sparrow

Seemed like a slow day for the cormorants compared to others, however, my first Humpback Whale while here, made up for that!

Humpback Whale passing through on the South West.

Humpback Whale Diving 4-6 minutes

 

Animal Census:

1- Humpback Whale

1- Bald Eagle

1- Sanderling

1- Sea Otter

1- Western Sandpiper

3- Black Oystercatchers

9- Canada Geese

10- Fox Sparrow

15- Black Turnstone

18- Cormorants

194- Harbor Seals

199- Stellar Sealion

679- Glaucous-winged Gull – 2- injured unable to fly (1 passed morning of 20th)

882- California Sealion

Bonus:

2- SPECTACULAR Rainbows!

 

Bald Eagle out on North Rocks

 

Black Oystercatcher

 

Steamy California Sealions after a rain storm

Stellar Sealion male yawning

Facility Work:

Topped up water in Batteries

Animal Census

 

Weather:

Overcast on and off

Rain storms in the afternoon

 Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Environment Canada forecast:

https://weather.gc.ca/marine/region_e.html?mapID=02

Welcome to the Rock!

 

 

My First Sunset on Race Rocks!

I have been counting down the days to this moment and I couldn’t be more excited and honoured!

I was fortunate enough to arrive at Race Rocks a day early and spend an afternoon and night learning from Cedric! What a huge benefit! We walked through the routine and technical operations with the Generator and Desalinater. Happy to answer my many questions and repeat the processes. He was super knowledgeable on history, ecology and one heck of a handy man!

The following morning (which is today) we walked through everything once more before Greg arrived with a tank full of Diesel for the generator and we all teamed up on a few tasks. Around 1600hr I had my final wave and am now alone… well… that is to say, without another human. I’m not sure I’ve actually lived within such a large population in many years now.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Jillian Brown, the new Eco-Guardian! For the past 2 years I have been CEO and Lead Guide for a Not-Profit camp that takes First Responders, Veterans, and at risk youth affected by PTSD out into the wild, and share tools to move that trapped energy in a safe and natural environment. Sharing how to find comfort within the uncomfortable. Accompanied by this, I am an adventure/expedition photographer, writer, public speaker and mental health/ptsd educator and advocate. I have had the pleasure to explore many corners of North America through paddling, hiking and pushing limits. Achieving both a world first (paddling a tandem sea kayak down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon) and a Canadian First (Paddling a new route across America). Connecting to nature, people, cultures, myself and so much more along the way! This has opened up amazing opportunities for speaking, from Cadet and military members, to high schools, CBC Documentaries, Conventions, and universities! @jillianabrownphotography

All Leading me here to this moment to connect to Race Rocks!

AND WHAT A BEAUTY OF A SUNSET TO SET THE STAGE FOR MY STAY HERE!

 

Facility Work:

Repaired broken siding

Transferred Diesel

Filled Generator

Filled Battery Banks

Repaired Electric Fences

 

 

 

Revisiting Intertidal Transect sites at Race Rocks

Watden’s Report, September 3, 2021

I was fortunate to be able to get out to Race Rocks on one of the last morning low tides of the season. I wanted to revisit intertidal locations around the island in order to take photos of belt transects in locations I had recorded with baseline studies back in May of 1995. Photographic transects are valuable records in the event of changes that may happen along coastlines, usually caused by humans and/or by extreme weather events . 

 

Images taken in 1995 can be seen in this index on transects: https://racerocks.ca/ecology/ecological-monitoring/

The belt transect files with images will be linked here when they have been processed :

Peg 6  Peg5: Peg 5a  Peg 5b Peg 14a,  Peg 14b Peg 115. 

I was fortunate to have the assistance of Cedric Torres, the ecoguardian in doing the work on the transects.

 

At this time of year the island is populated by many young  glaucous-winged gulls, some fully fledged and other son various states of maturity. There were also a number of mortalities around the island which is typical for this time of year in a breeding colony.  In the following videos a number of behaviours of the chicks are shown .

Harbour seals with pups are hauled out on the southern most reef, note the current was still  ebbing in this video.

The California and Stellers sea lions have started coming back in large numbers. typically the Californias outnumber the Stelllers at this time of year.

Beneath the tower, the Californians( barking)  are predominant: but there is alos a mix of the growling Stellers.

 

On the East side cove a large group of Californian Sea lions were hauled out. The ones here were very skittish, any movement near the east end of the  house would startle them

.

Other observations : two orcas in Race Passage ( surprizingly with no whale watching boats nearby.  The nice weather on Sept 3 brought out many whale watching boats and as usual they approach closer to the north side in front of the docks than necessary and well within the distance for viewing marine mammal colonies. The sea lions on that side are more habituated to the presence of humans and these boats than on other parts of the island, but many still go into an alert stage when the boats pass by.

Only a few pelagic cormorants were seen on the south west tip of the island.

The Calendula escapes from gardens of lightkeepers over 50 years ago still exist along the pathways, although the dry summer has been challenging. I was able to make a new species observation of these green blow flies on the flowers.

 

This summer with the heat dome experience on Vancouver Island there have been reports of damage to intertidal life. I took these images of high intertidal level barnacles in the arintertidal between peg 14 and 15. which show very little damage from this event,

We checked out Anita’s pool #6 . The intertidal life in the area has been unchanged for decades.

On the west side of the cliff near peg 5 , we took these images on the vertical rock face as records of barnacle distribution:

And near peg 15 we noted these finger limpets in a shaded rock at an extreme high intertidal elevation.

And a follow-up photo of The ill-fated tidepool #13 which was readjusted in the hurricane of 2006

 

 

 

 

 

Knowledgeable Visitor

My solitude has been broken,
Yesterday Garry Fletcher,a former Pearson College teacher and current ecological reserve  warden, came to the island to spend the night.  He was taking advantage of the last weekday low tide for the next 8 days to get some pictures of the intertidal life.  I sure am glad that he did!

Facility Work:
His stay started with an oil change of the diesel generator that is on the island.  This has to be done every 200 hours.

Greg giving me a quick rundown before he has to head back to the college

Cleaning of solar panels (daily)
Cleaning of windows (as needed)
Cleaning interior of secondary residence

The next morning we attacked the reason for his visit first thing in the morning while the tide was still dropping

Here I am paying out the tape  on peg 15 to then take pictures of the intertidal life at low tide.   Garry was collecting this data to compare with baseline photo transects taken many years ago.

Ecological Notes:
Several Orcas were sighted in Race Passage.

Garry also took this video of a sea otter passing us when we were working in the intertidal area.off the North East corner of Great Race Island.

noted Western X Glaucous-winged Gull  hybrid by helicopter pad

 Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Environment Canada forecast:

https://weather.gc.ca/marine/region_e.html?mapID=02