Wildlife notes

I had a special treat today. Three killer whales swam past the west side of the island and up the straight. One was a little one hard to spot without the camera. These are first I have seen arriving on May 15th!

There was more carnage on the walkway. Soo much orange. I wonder if this was dropped from a height? There are two gull nests nearby, one of which is now down to a single egg. If only our store bought eggs had were so dark in colour, although looking at this I loose my appetite for eggs.

The female elephant seal made huge progress in her molt the past 24 hours. She looks to be half way there.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• finished weeding the bricks by the Energy Building

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 7
• Private: 0

Weather

Clear skies and light and variable winds in the morning. Scattered clouds and gentle westerly breeze in the afternoon. Daytime temperatures: low 11, high 13.

Wildlife notes:

The bigger female elephant seal is in day 6 of the shedding part of her molt. The smaller post molt female is still here. These days they seem to be dragging themselves to the water several times a day. There is nothing unusual to report with the other wildlife. Some of the gulls haven’t laid their eggs yet but the majority are sitting on nests. It is a relief not to see any entangled sea lions. There have been whales in the area the past two days as evidenced by the distant groupings of ecotourism boats, but they have been too far off for me to see.

Day 6 – dressed in rags an tatters

The silky smooth post molt female elephant seal making the slow trip (many rests required) up the ramp after a swim.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• topped up fluid levels in the batteries
• cut a few rounds and chopped kindling

Visitors

A group of staff from Pearson College came for a site tour.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 12
• Private: 1

Weather

Skies clear. Winds light and variable most of the day. A gently westerly breeze developed by late afternoon. Daytime temperatures: low 12, high 20.

Wildlife notes:

The gulls are eating something new.  The solar panels today were covered with exceptional large sprays of pinky-orange gull poo. One day I may write a Cleaners Guide to Gull Poo, rating ease of clean up from 1: requiring several rounds of pre-soaking and excessive scrubbing to 5: easy wipe, little water needed. Today’s poo rates as a 4: no scrub, extra water due to chunky consistency.

The egg thief is making a statement. Their collection of gull eggs shells near the house is growing.  I’d love to discover who is responsible – if only I had a trail camera to set up.

Unlike the egg thief, the female elephant is quietly minding her own business in the field.

Four chattering purple martins (3 female or immature and one male) visited today. I believe they are trying to find a nesting spot and were inspecting the pipes on the south side of tower that emit signals for the fog detectors. There are two nesting boxes on the island that have not yet been mounted. Seeing they have returned, I’ll look for a place to stand them up.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• worked on the walkways
• cleaned the outside windows on the Keeper’s House
• 690 L of diesel fuel was delivered today (415 L large tidy tank, 100L small tidy tank, 175 L into a barrel). The next delivery will not be until the fall.

Vessels

• Ecotourism:18
• Private: 11

Weather

Light SE and NE winds until late afternoon when the temperature reached 25 degrees C. Westerly fresh breeze in the early evening bringing the temperature down to 13 degrees C. Daytime temperatures: 13 low, high 25.

Parts of Vancouver Island reached over 30 degrees today. Here it is comfortable – no long underwear needed and I even skipped lighting the woodstove tonight.

Pacific willow dock (Rumex transitoris) is growing on the concrete stairs leading to the grassy field on the west side of the Keeper’s house. Unlike the curly dock pulled from the field on the opposite side of the path, this is a native plant that grows from California to Alaska. Happy to find another native plant species on the Race Rocks!

Pacific willow dock

Wildlife notes

The killing has begun.  I walked down the path to the Tank Shed, spent a under a minute there and walked back up to find an egg shell on the path. There were no eagles present during that time so it must have been another gull. The male (thicker beaked of the two) associated with the nest came right at me as if I did it. Shame, the nest had only one egg to begin with. It will be interesting to see if she will lay more and how long this will take.

Seagull egg

Facility work

It is chilly here in the house and the fire wood is running low. In preparation I took the chainsaw out for a cleaning and sharpening as I noticed it was dull when I cut the boards for the compost bin. I suppose it will get dull quickly in this environment cutting drift wood with tiny hidden embedded rocks and grit. It has been a while but the task and the smell of the chain oil brought back some fond memories of special times in Prince Rupert and Rosswood.

• cleaned solar panels
• weed whacked a bit (one batteries worth of charge)
• cleaned, inspected (worn sprocket) and sharpened the saw

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 2
• Private: 2

Weather

Fog present in the am. Winds predominately WSW, gentle to moderate breeze. Daytime temperatures: low 10, high 12.

Wildlife notes

The east beach black oyster catchers have moved their nest. They now have two eggs in a different location about two feet away. I am not sure if they moved the first egg that distance (picked it up or rolled it over a rock to get there?) or if they started over again after the first egg was taken. I have to correct my comment in the post presenting the black oystercatcher nests on the island, suggesting they laid the same number of eggs this year as hatched in 2024. I’ll have a look in a week and see what the status is on their eggs.

Locations of the black oystercatcher nests on the Energy Building beach in 2024 and 2025

Facility work

• cleaned solar panels
• topped up battery fluid levels
• did a manual run on the generator
• measured specific gravity
• started on the first part of the walkway to the Student Building

Started clearing the pathway to the Student Building – the right fork.

Vessels

• ecotourism: 6
• private: 0

Weather

Periods of fog with visibility <1 mile in the morning and for short periods in the afternoon. Winds light WSW in the morning, moderate westerly breeze in the afternoon.  Daytime temperatures: low 8, high 10.

Wildlife notes

The largest female elephant seal has begun her molt. She had weeping eyes yesterday and today there are obvious signs of shedding around her eyes and lower lip. It will be a slow process during which time she will loose a lot of weight and look pretty revolving… but not so bad a plucked bird.

The Canary by Frederic Ogden Nash

Facility work

• cleaned solar panels
• clearing walkways

I struggled with the electric weed whacker today. The spool ran out and I spent too long trying to get the new chord wound on. Last summer, I watched them struggle with it and dreaded when I’d have to do it alone. It is round so I couldn’t put it in the vice and get some leverage. It should be that hard! I even cleaned it first. Note: gel hand sanitizer will take off anything, even tree pitch on your car.  It is ready now to start on a new walkway – the branch to the Student Building.

Today’s struggle

Walkway to the Energy building on the left – cracks cleared and sides trimmed. To the right – my next major job.  I’ll also need to pull out our edging tool “the root slayer” for this one.

DND Activity

Several blast today rattled the birds, myself and the back screen door.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 4
• Private: 4

Weather

Clear skies. Moderate westerly breeze, much quieter than last night’s 40 knot gusts. Daytime temperatures: low 10, high 12.

Two tiny clumps of Scouler’s popcornflower (Plagiobothrys scouleri) are growing at the top of the boat ramp in a crack in the rocks between the Boat Shed and the Tank Shed.  This native plant is tiny, with flowers only a few centimeters wide. I haven’t seen it any where else and I hope the English stonecrop doesn’t invade and push it out.

Today I removed the invasive curly dock (Rumex crispus) from the grassy field to the east of the Desalinator Building.  Hopefully it won’t get a hold here.  Another invasives species I recently discovered is the field pepperwort, peppercress or fieldcress (Lepidium campestre). It is edible, has spicy seeds and in other parts of the world is cultivated. This small plant was found along the walkway to the Energy building and in patches around the tower base. Too bad I can’t taste it here or that the geese don’t eat it.

Wildlife notes

I watched the black oystercatcher pair on the east side of the Jetty hoping to discover if they had a nest. Today was the first time I noticed how blunt their beaks are! They feed in the intertidal zone and their strong blunt beaks are used to dig, pry open, crush or hammer through the shells of marine invertebrates.

Black oystercatcher

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• removed the curly dock from the grassy field
• weed whacked the walkway to the Energy Building

DND

A handful of blasts were seen and heard today. Little disturbance was noted.

Vessels

• ecotourism: 1
• private: 5
• paddleboard: 1

Weather

Clear skies, fog bank distant in the afternoon. Winds light NE in early morning, veering to strong westerlies in the afternoon, increasing to gale force in the early evening. Daytime temperatures: low 10, high 17.

Wildlife notes

It has been a regular day here with little to report on. The two female elephant seals are still here. The smaller of the two looks thinner each day. The larger of the two, who arrived on May 18th (Sunday surprise) looks as though she will start her molt soon. The brown pelicans haven’t been seen in days. The Canada geese haven’t run out of food yet, so they are still here. The eagles continue to fly overhead and send the birds to the skies.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• finished fixing and sorting the compost bins

As I needed to empty the composting toilet, I figured it was an opportune time to finish working on the compost bins. After the tiring and displeasing work (removing the grasses and invasive sow thistles and other items, consolidating the mushy toilet bags into one bin and distributing well composted material), it was kind of fun – I got to do some chainsaw carpentry!  I fixed the base rock work, cut and replaced the rotten bottom drop boards and cut and mounted new stringers. Now we have two bins – one which will be ready to disperse next year and one to add new material to. I finished it off by hand pulling the weeds from the perimeter and weed whacking the grass around it and it looks really nice now!

Sow thistle and grass in the compost bin

Bin on on the top – partially composted material for dispersal next year. Bin on the bottom – cleared out and ready for new material.

DND Activity

Several blasts were heard today. A few birds took flight.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 10
• Private: 2

Weather

Clear skies. Winds variable 1 – 15 knots. Daytime temperatures: low 10, high 18.

I have now located 5 active black oystercatcher nests, each with 1 to 3 eggs. Last year I was only aware of two nesting locations: Keepers House nest and the Energy building nest. For these two pairs at least, the number of eggs is the same this year as I saw hatched last year.  When I noticed the Keeper’s house pair, they had two young chicks (few days old), and this year two eggs. Later on I found the Energy House pair with only one egg (2 days old, 1 day old) and had assumed the other eggs were eaten but this year they also have only one egg. There is an additional pair of oystercatchers on the east side of the Jetty but I can’t find a nest.

Keeper’s House black oystercatcher peaking out from its nesting spot

Keeper’s House black oystercatcher’s two eggs on a nest made of small stones and shells.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• cleared vegetation from along the north and east electric fence
• worked on the compost bins, removed massive sow thistle and grasses, dispersed compost

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 19
• Private: 3
• Kayaks: 4
• Row boat: 1

Weather

Clear skies. Light and variable winds during the day, gentle westerly breeze in the evening. Daytime temperatures: low 10, high 15.

Another person and dog with good timing, living their best life.