Mammals:

• California sealion: 457, nearly all on Great Race Rocks (July 25:17)
• Stellar sealion: 205, half of which are on the outer islands (July 25: 29)
• harbour seal: 136
• humpback whales: 6

Birds:

• gulls: >2200 including chicks
• cormorant: 73
• black oystercatcher: 2  (July 25: 14 plus 5 chicks)
• pigeon guillemot: 3 (July 25: 234)
• black turnstone: 4 (July 25: 113)

A lot has changed here in the past month. I have included some of my last census numbers from a month ago to highlight the differences.

The sea lion population has exploded and I expect it will continue to grow in size.  It is much louder here and their stench is overpowering.  The amount of guano has also increased. It is not just the rocks along the shore line that are painted white, it is now all the rocks and walkways. You can’t open a window in the house with the combined aroma of the sea lion scat and the guano. The only somewhat fresh smelling air is at the top of the light house.

The harbour seal pups have been weened and can’t be obviously identified by their size or proximity to their mothers. I also could not locate the oystercatcher chicks so they may have fledged or been pushed off the beaches by the sea lions to stretches of the outer shore I can not access or observe.  The pigeon guillemot have mostly left. One of the three I saw today had a meal in its beak so there may be one chick left in a borrow somewhere. There are also very few shorebirds.

Unfortunately the good camera left the island yesterday. I will only have a cell phone camera so the I’ll be selecting things large enough, slow enough or close enough to photograph.  You will be seeing a lot sea lion photos until the good camera comes back.

A large Stellar sea lion with some California sea lions south of the Energy building many meters above the shore line.

The pile up on the boat ramp. I sent them away when it was time to get the sea water readings. I saw one climb right over the electric fence unbothered so I figure it is best to send them along before the situation gets worse. They’ll either get fed up with moving or become harder to move (i.e. accustom to my idle threats).  I hope it is not the latter.

Facility work

• topped up the battery fluids
• the generator ran for during the day, so I did not clean the solar panels.
• ran the desalinator for 8 hours, produced 600 L of fresh water
• did a load of laundry of bedding and towels
• patrolled the electric fence

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 28
• Private: 11

Weather

Overcast. Winds westerly 9-15 in the morning, west-south-west 8-17 in the afternoon. Daytime temperatures 12 to 14 degrees.