Wildlife notes

Here is the news!

The pigeon guillemots are hatching! Searching for incubation and fledging times I came across the Salish Sea Guillemot Network.  An incredible organization collecting massive amounts of good data.  In 2025 they had 243 citizen-science volunteers who spent 5295 hours surveying 65 colonies recording populations size, number of active burrows, burrows with chicks and the quantity and type of prey delivered to the burrows (their prey is actually selectively sized based on the age/size of their chick!). There is a lot of information, many presentations, the most incredible photos and great merchandise for sale on their website. There is just too much information on pigeon guillemots to summarize here. One thing that struck me was in many places the pigeon guillemots nest in burrows on bluffs (scroll down on this page to see photos of these bluffs).  Here they are in the rock piles and in the rock walls.

Based on their data, they incubate for 32 days and fledge 5 to 7 weeks later, which could be somewhere from the last week of July to the second week of August.  I hope I am here and lucky enough to see one leave a burrow!

Pigeon guillemot in a burrow in the rock wall beside the Keeper’s House. A part of the shell from the one egg in this burrow is in front of the parent.

Location of the burrow in the wall by the Keeper’s House.

On a less pleasing note, the egg thief is still at it. He is probably the only bird on this island happy to hear the eagle alert call from the black oystercatchers. It is his dinner bell!

Facility work

The generator was running during the day and it was sprinkling, with rain forecast overnight, so I skipped cleaning the solar panels.  Today’s focus was on making water (tank is finally very close to full) and weeding.

Cleared grass from around the back stairs and the compost bins.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 18
• Private: 0

Weather

Skies partly cloudy to overcast. Short periods of rain. Winds variable 5 to 26 knots. Daytime temperatures 11 to 13 degrees.