Wildlife notes

Merriam Websters Word of the Day today is assiduous – “showing great care, attention, and effort.”  The Energy Building black oystercatchers has been assiduous in their nest building efforts, selecting and carrying each wave-washed rounded shell fragment to their nesting site to create a surface among the rocks and boulders for their precious eggs. The word implies they are in it for the long haul or can sit with or in this case, sit on their task. But then for unknown reasons they just pack it in. They laid 2 eggs on their first nest but discarded both those eggs, sort of rolled them off a cliff and started over. They built a second nest only a foot away where they laid one egg. They diligently kept that one egg warm for over two weeks. Today they decide to abandon that nest as well and have moved their one egg another foot away to a third location (last year they moved nests only once).  I noticed the move at 11:30am. They spent the day carrying the shells to around the moved egg and had somehow managed to lift the egg in the process. What was wrong with the two discarded eggs from nest 1? What was wrong with nest 2? How did they move the egg to nest 3 and not break it? Nest 3 is further away from the nearby gull nest and closer to the smaller rocks which may provide more cover for the chick but I guess we will never really know.  CLICK on the image below to enlarge it.

Facility work

• cleaned solar panels
• weeding along walkway
• scrubbed another 2 meter section of the oily Generator Room floor
• cut away two leaking sections of firehose and refastened. I had to repair the cistern hose section before the gull chicks hatch. Moving around in the open area could result in a chick or two being killed as they all run about in a panic with no where to hide.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 15
• Private: 3

Weather

Clear skies during the day with westerlies 13 to 20.  Fog by early evening with westerlies 28 knots and increasing. Daytime temperature 10 to 11 degrees.

Wildlife notes

Nothing unusual to report today. No more oystercatcher chicks have hatched and it is too early for the gulls and pigeon guillemot eggs. The female elephant seal is still here, much thinner and preparing for her journey back to the sea.

Female elephant seal floating by the Jetty

Facility work

I am working on clearing the grass along the edges and from the cracks in the concrete walkways. It helps for moving the cart around, lengthens the lifespan of the concrete  but also with fewer hiding spots for the chicks, I can move about with a bit less trouble from their parents.  While scrubbing clean another meter of the floor in the generator building I noticed how low loud and continuous the fans were running in the master port. I cleaned the vents so hopefully it will extend its life for another two months before the new system gets installed.

• cleaned solar panels
• cleared walkway to the lighthouse (weed wacked grass and pulled thistles)
• cleaned in generator room

Walkway to the lighthouse cleared with a few detours around gull nests at the top. This job would have best been done before nest building had begun.

Weather

Clear skies. Light and variable winds during the day, westerlies 20 knots in the evening.  Daytime temperatures 12 to 18 degrees.

Wildlife notes

The elephant seal is still here, napping and going for her daily swims.  The only new visitors spotted today were the purple martins inspecting the fog horn tubes as a possible nesting site and a group of Heermann’s gulls on East Beach.

Immature and mature Heermann’s gulls on the rocks by East Beach

Facility work

Greg and Richard came this afternoon. The foot valve (allows water flow in only one direction and prevents backflow) on the line in the cistern was replaced and Richard put a fire house coupling on the line so the valve can be more easily retrieved.  Greg changed many of the filters on the desalinator. This greatly improved post pressure and we are back at 30 psi. We still have a problem with the pre pressure so on Monday we will check the pressure tank. They also brought a load tester and it is confirmed we need a new starter battery for the generator, which they will bring on Monday so I will need to watch the system closely and attach the battery charger if an automatic generator start is expected in the middle of the night.

• cleaned solar panels
• weeding
• cleaning floors
• new foot valve in cistern
• new pre and post filters on the desalinator

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 6
• Private: 1

Weather

Clear skies.  Winds variable 2 to 14 knots. Daytime temperatures= 12 to 15 degrees.

Wildlife notes

There have been very low (negative) tides here over the past few days. The real biodiversity here is below water. In my next life I’d like to be a diver as well as a musician. I was going to say I’d like to be a harbour seal until I discovered they were colour blind! I won’t even try to name all the creatures in the low tide photos below.

Facility work

The high winds kept me off the roof today so the solar panels did not get cleaned. I spent the day in the Energy Building vacuuming and cleaning decades of oil and grease associated with Old Lister from the floors. It will be another two before that room is done.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 1
• Private: 0

Weather

Clear skies and lively seas.  Steady WNW gale force winds up to 44 knots. Daytime temperatures 12 to 14 degrees.

Sporty conditions – tide and wind waves over South Seal Rocks.

I am not properly equipped for good tide pool photos.

Wildlife notes

Four purple martins toured the island yesterday. It was so pleasant to hear their chatter all day. They even inspected the nesting box mounted on the back porch. I hope the gull goon who often sits on top of these doesn’t deter them. I haven’t seen much of them today.  Please stay! It would make Garry Fletcher very happy. He delivered the nesting boxes to Race Rocks especially for you!

The goose beats the gull for the best built nest.

Facility work

The weather has delayed the repairs to the cistern check valve and filter replacement on the desalinator, both of which are contributing to pump and pressure issues.  There was a failed auto start on the generator last night at 9:30pm. I put the battery charger on it and manually started the generator.. .a whole room full of batteries, a generator full of fuel and could it be one little starter battery holding up the whole show?  Tomorrow is another windy day again but Greg and Richard should be out on Wednesday with parts and a load tester.

• cleaned solar panels
• weed whacked section of the walkway to the Tank Shed
• started cleaning and vacuuming the Generator Room

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 5
• Private: 1

Weather

Partly cloudy. Fresh westerly breeze in the morning. Gale force northwest in the afternoon. Daytime temperature 12 to 20 degrees.

Wildlife notes

I discovered two new black oystercatcher nests this year: one in the rocks on a very high (a long walk down to the shore for a little oystercatcher) part of the island to the north of the helicopter pad and one on the east side of the jetty close to shore. There was a pair on the east side of the jetty last year but they did not exhibit any nesting or feeding behaviour.

The two new oystercatcher nests found this year are shown below. One high on the bluffs behind the Heli Pad and one close to shore on the east side of the Jetty.

I can’t say whether oystercatcher pairs return to the exact same spot each year or if they have to establish their territory anew each year, but in most cases except for the Coast Guard pair, this year’s nests are in the exact same location or only two feet away from last years nests.  What is very different this year is the timing of egg hatch.  The Keepers House pair were the first to hatch, more than two weeks earlier than last year.  In contrast the West Jetty pair had already hatched their two chicks by this time last year. Now they are starting to visit their nest but are still mating and haven’t yet laid an egg.

The oystercatcher nest map is below (click on it to expand). Note, I left the island last year before getting a visual on the Energy Building chicks to confirm number hatched.

Facility work

• cleaned solar panels
• checked batteries
• weeded around Bunker and Water Shed

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 8
• Private: 2

Weather

HOT! Clear skies and sun. Winds light and variable until evening, then westerlies 10 to 23 knots. Daytime temperatures 19 to 24 degrees. I did not need to light a fire today.

Wildlife notes

Two banded gulls were observed late yesterday afternoon and reported to the Salish Sea Gull Project.  The researchers with Environment and Climate Change Canada are studying gull movements over time, their location preferences or site fidelity, and survival.  The gulls I reported in 2024 and 2025 didn’t stray too far from home but this year we have a long distance traveler on Race Rocks who came all the way from Haida Gwaii. He was banded as a adult in 2024 so is now at least 6 years old.  We also have a banded gull nesting on Race Rocks! This male is 7 years old and is probably in his 2nd or 3rd mating season.  I found him on a nest with two eggs.  This area will need to be checked again next season as they generally return to the same nesting site. To learn more about this project and how to report a banded gull see this post from June 2025.  Below is a summary of the gulls reported in 2024, 2025, and 2026.

The location of the banded gull’s nest on the east side of the island just beyond the mudflat. This location should be checked next summer.

Also the blue egg laying gull has returned to the exact same spot beside the CODAR installation and like last year, has laid two pointy plain blue eggs.

The CODAR gull’s nest

Facility notes

Regular tasks were completed in the morning (solar panels, a short attempt at water making which was aborted, water sample, etc).  The afternoon was much more varied. Richard came with his bucket of tools and a number of jobs were tackled: bunker door repaired, new propane tank hold fast added, blinds and a smoke/CO2 alarms hung, measured distance of run from cistern to the Jetty for replacing the fire hose system with a permanent hard piped system, made plans to replace the fraying flag halyard, drained oil from the last remaining piece of Old Lister, moved the used oil drum to the Tank Shed and moved another enormous pile of old wires and broken equipment from the island. We spent some time trouble shooting the pump issues and on Monday he and Greg will return with a coupler for the cistern draw pipe to simplify accessing and replacing the check valve.  Hopefully that will fix the issues with pump cycling on and off and I can get back to filling our fresh water tank.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 7
• Private: 0

Weather

Clear skies. Westerlies 7 to 18 knots. Daytime temperatures 9 to 16 degrees.