Monthly Archives: June 2024

Battery Top Up Day

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Battery maintenance

The batteries are stored in a separate room in the Energy Building. Once a week the 24 unsealed lead acid batteries require a top up with distilled water to insure the plates are fully covered.  We open the battery cap, use a dip tube to measure fluid levels and add water to achieve fluid depth of 10 – 15 mm above the plates. It is not a complicated task but vital for the long-term health of the batteries.

 

Facility work:

  • cleaned solar panels
  • topped up batteries
  • cleaned house windows

Wildlife notes:

One Canada goose, a swallow and two Hermann’s gulls were sighted today.  Like the last few days, the male Elephant seal spent most of his day asleep in the grass. He moves to the side of the house in the late afternoon and often heads to the water via the boat ramp in the late evening.

The Elephant seal asleep on his back.

The Keeper’s House

 

Vessels:

14 Ecotourism boats of varying sizes

DND:

Several blasts were heard in the morning. The wildlife were undisturbed by all but the last and loudest blast which sent two sealions into the water.

Weather:

A pleasant windy day.

June 12th Census

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Mammals

California sea lions: 4
Elephant seals: 1 (male)
Harbour seals: 92 (19 South Islands, 72 Middle Islands, 1 Great Race Rock)

Birds

Bald eagle: 1
Cormorants: 32
Gulls: 389
Oyster catchers: 8 adults, 2 chicks
Pigeon guillemots: 133

Oyster catcher with one of two chicks

 

Facility work:

  • Cleaned solar panels
  • Census
  • Repair fences toppled by the high winds of the previous day

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 10 vessels

Weather:

  • Wind: steady westerlies 18 – 24 knots

Notes for Day 2 at Race Rocks

Census day

After the morning cleaning of the panels I decided to wander beyond the electric fence.  Surely it wasn’t meant to keep me in and how else could I complete the census.  It was liberating wandering about and I even peered into a spectacular tide pool. I am used to different methods walking in certain terrain: through the sprawling yellow cedar or “shin tangle” of coastal BC bogs or the Tuckamore of Newfoundland, you bob and weave, through Devil’s club it is more like Thai Chi. Today I learned how best to walk with the birds.  I started with the head down, quick and deliberate, travelling from one small gull free patch to another. The better approach is to travel very slowly, only a few steps at a time then have a long and still pause. I observed many nests during my slow walkabout and was surprised by number of the poorly formed or empty ones. There are often bursts of commotion when all the gulls take flight but I haven’t yet seen an eagle at that time or any other obvious cause for the scare. Even though I feel more comfortable walking past or through hovering gulls, I still wear my helmet and often carry a broom over my shoulder.

My day ended watching the cormorants leave in the fading light.

New to the Rock

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Today is my first day as the Ecoguardian at the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve. I was dropped off at 8:30 am with my personal gear, bags of groceries and a reminder to monitor the solar panels, batteries and the electric fence – there are more duties and responsibilities but a source of power is one of the essentials.

Power

I unpacked, put groceries away and set off to tackle the my first chore – clean the panels. The solar panels are mounted on the roof and on the side of the Energy Building which houses the diesel generator.  At this time of year, with the long sunny days and daily cleaning, it is possible to power the house systems just on solar power.  Why the daily cleaning? There are hundreds of gulls nesting here and what do we will do at least once a day? Poop!

Panels on the Energy Building roof

After hauling the cleaning supplies up to the roof and turning on the water, I thought a methodical approach would serve me best. I climbed back down and noted my “starting point” of 3.1 kW of energy being produced by the panels.  After cleaning four panels, I climbed down to check the display.  It was up to 3.4 kW.  Cleaning is one of those tasks that provide instant gratification and now, doubly so.  With all the roof panels cleaned they were producing 4.2 kW and with lower side panels it was up to 4.8 kW!  I tell myself “what a worthwhile task and job well done Christine”

Well, later in the day I have some time to sit down and familiarize myself with OPTICSRE, the software package that lets you visualize your energy system production (solar or generator), storage (battery bank) and consumption levels. It turns out that in the long time it took me to figure out the best way to clean the panels and finally get the job done (between 10 am and noon), the sun was moving, as it does everyday, and with the clear skies, was naturally approaching its peak midday production levels (see graph below). Silly me, it wasn’t all my doing!  Shame there is no easy way to determine the added benefits of cleaning the panels.

OPTICSRE graph of energy levels produced by the solar panels (green bar), stored in the batteries (dark blue bar), taken from the battery by the house systems (light blue bar) for each hour on June 11.

The software also displays live time power use. I consult this throughout the day and find it memorizing.  The image below shows the current situation at night as I write this. Very little energy is going from the panels to battery, the batteries are at near full capacity and we are operating in the red, drawing power from the battery bank.  The house (appliances, computer, lights etc) generally draw 1.3 kW of power. If I turn on all the lights in the house and the bathroom fan, it jumps to 1.5 kW. I think if we had such a monitor in our homes, we would be more aware of our consumption and our footprint.

OPTICSRE live display of the energy system

 

Heads to the wind

The another thing I discovered today was all the gulls were facing the same way because of the wind!  We went from light winds at 8:00 am to 41 knots with gust of 46 by early afternoon. Like me, if standing, they took a wider stance, arching and bracing for the gusts. I watched one trying to move travelling side-to-the-wind and being blown off a rock; most scuttle side-ways like crabs.

Bracing and ruffled in a gust of wind

A very interesting first day.

It is a privilege to be here.

 

 

Farewell! (For Now)

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Well, just like that it’s been 6 weeks and it’s time for me to return to the mainland. The wind is gusting 65km/hour right now, giving me one final storm before my departure. The animals are all hidden away, protecting themselves from the weather. All except the male elephant seal who is still harassing the gulls.

I thought I’d wrap up my final blog post with my favourite photos and moments from this trip. I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

Pinnipeds:

Cetaceans:

Ollie the Sea Otter: 

Birds:

Northern Lights:

Sunsets:

That’s all from me for now, but I’ll be back! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

Gulls Gone Wild

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The gulls are showing no mercy. Not to the elephant seal, not to the eagles, and certainly not to me. I will say that they haven’t been as bad as what I was expecting but it does amaze me that nothing seems to scare them, even animals much larger than them.

Through no fault of his own, the elephant seal has been romping through the grass and squashing nests as he goes. The gulls, as you might imagine, absolutely despise him. He seems rather confused as to why they are dive bombing his head and I was impressed as he nearly bit one out of the air. Last night he managed to lay on top of a nest all night without cracking the eggs and I’m still trying to figure out how. He moved onto a different nest this morning and the nest of 3 eggs is now down to 2. Currently he is back on the original nest except this time he is fully on top of it and I would be shocked if any remain unbroken when he leaves.

I ended my evening by watching a humpback breach in the distance, causing big splashes with its tail slaps. Unfortunately it was too far away for any decent photographs!

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 30 vessels – most so far this season!
  • Private: 8 vessels, lots of boats on the water this morning

Weather:

  • Sky: Mix of sun and cloud
  • Wind: Low of 1 knots, High of 18 knots – picked up in the afternoon
  • Sea: Glassy, small whitecaps late afternoon
  • Temperature: Low 13•C, High 24•C

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

Porpoises, Killer Whales, and Humpbacks, Oh My!

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Another gorgeous day on this rock! The gulls are laying eggs faster than I can count them and they seem to range from 1-3 per nest. Lots of nests still without eggs though and lots still being built. I got to see both humpbacks and killer whales not too far out of the reserve today and yet I think I was most excited about the porpoises. I see harbour porpoises nearly every time I go to the beach when I’m home yet I rarely seem to see them here. The water today was so glassy they were impossible to miss!

Facility work:

  • Topped up battery electrolytes
  • Cleaned solar panels

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 24 vessels
  • Private: 1 vessel

DND Blasting:

  • 10:30am – Birds fled, pinnipeds aware but remained hauled out
  • 10:32am – Birds still hadn’t returned from first blast, sea lions sat up, harbour seals went in the water
  • 10:45am – Was in the midst of battery maintenance, did not note disturbance
  • 12:50pm – Birds fled
  • 12:52pm – Birds still gone from previous blast 
  • 1:10pm – Birds fled but quick to return

Weather:

  • Sky: Blue sky and sun
  • Wind: Low of 4 knots, High of 9 knots
  • Sea: Glassy
  • Temperature: Low 10•C, High 24•C

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

New Fence!

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I can’t believe I only have a few days left here on Race Rocks. The time has absolutely flown by. Today was warm and almost completely windless. The male elephant seal is on the grass and behaving himself, and I saw one of the small females in the water near the jetty so I imagine she’s been hauling out on one of the nearby rocks to avoid the big guy.

I officially got swooped at by my first gull, we both let out an interesting sounding shriek. Thankfully that was the only one so far, and while the rest clearly don’t enjoy my presence they haven’t acted on it yet.

Greg and Cedric came by this afternoon to start work on the new electric fence for the jetty which I’m happy to report was very successful and is currently up and running. They also brought a new unit out for salinity and temperature testing so I no longer need to use the old testing method!

Humpbacks now seem to be visible on the horizon almost every day which is exciting, and I got to watch about 3-4 transient orca pass by this afternoon. I’m crossing my fingers for one more close encounter before I leave !

Facility work:

  • Started building new electric fence around jetty

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 25 vessels – the most I’ve had yet!
  • Private: 3 vessels

Weather:

  • Sky: Blue sky and sun
  • Wind: Low of 2 knots, High of 9 knots
  • Sea: Calm
  • Temperature: Low 8•C, High 20•C

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

June 5th Census

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Happy census day! See below for this week’s creatures.

Mammals:

California sea lions: 30
Elephant seals: 1 (male)
Harbour seals: 143
Sea otter: 1 (Ollie)
Steller sea lions: 8

Birds:

Bald eagle (adult): 2
Bald eagle (juvenile): 4
Barn swallows: 1
Canadian geese: 4
Cormorants: 62
Gulls: 358
Oyster catchers: 8
Pigeon guillemots: 103

Facility work:

  • Chopped wood
  • Cleaned solar panels
  • Cleaned windows of both houses
  • Finished weed whacking pathways

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 10 vessels
  • Private: 1 vessel

Weather:

  • Sky: Blue sky and sun
  • Wind: Low of 2 knots, High of 10 knots
  • Sea: Calm
  • Temperature: Low 7•C, High 16•C

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **