Mammals:

• California sealion: 2
• harbour seal:  144

Birds:

• gulls: 598
• cormorant: 30
• black oystercatcher: 14
• pigeon guillemot: 63
• Canada goose: 2
• bald eagle: 1
• harlequin duck: 8

Pigeon guillemots are underrepresented. Wildlife seen this week inside the reserve but not observed today include: Caspian tern, Stellar sea lion, barn swallow, dark legged shore bird and a female elephant seal last seen July 3.

The events are probably unrelated but the first day here without the endearing elephant seal and I am immediately chasing the only two barking California sea lions off the jetty and the boat ramp. How quickly things change!

I spent three hours in the lighthouse looking for black oystercatcher chicks and harbour seal pups. Success on both accounts but with the high winds I was limited to taking very lousy photos through the lighthouse windows.  I found one young harbour seal pup.  The mom looked as if it was trying to encourage the pup onto the rocks for a rest. It tried to get up on the rocks but gave up and turned around.  The mom went after it and together they swirled, twirled and touched noses – an incredible thing to watch.

The Keepers House oystercatcher chicks are three weeks old. They are big and strong enough to be taken to the water edge and shown how to forage. Their legs are pink, beaks half orange and their pin feathers are starting to grow.  The Coast Guard and the East Beach parents haven’t moved their young chicks close to shore yet. At times when the foraging is good, they return every two minutes with a food delivery for their little chicks.

Keepers House black oystercatcher parent and their three week old chick.

ALL THE WAY TO ZERO

What a nicely painted ship, such beautiful colours, worth a photo!  It turns out this ship,  the Tauranga Maersk, is the second of Maersk’s six midsized dual fuel (methanol) ships launched in 2026. According to the Maersk’s All The Way to Zero webpage, the shipping of 11 billion tons of stuff around the world accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and they are committed to net zero by 2040.  Maersk says the duel fuel ships are one of the ways to reach this goal, with hopes of other technologies on the horizon.  Unfortunately, one of the companies trying hydrogen just went bankrupt :(

The container ship Tauranga Maersk left Vancouver at 9:48 am today, was photographed here at 3:30pm on route to Yokohama Japan with an ETA of July 21, 15:00.

Facility work

• cleaned solar panels
• general cleaning

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 9
• Private: 1

Weather

Scattered clouds. W 20 to 25 knots in the am, WNW 33 in the pm. Daytime temperatures 12 to 14 degrees.