Author Archives: Garry Fletcher

Archives of Victoria Newspaper Articles on Race Rocks

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The  British Colonist Newspaper Archives 1859-1906
https://racerocks.ca/newspaper-archives-1859-1906/

Since the last time I looked at the digitized versions of the early newspaper of Victoria, further work has been done by the University of Victoria Archives in digitizing and more of the early Victoria Newspaper references to Race Rocks have been found.  Here are some that I have come across to date..

1858/08/12 .. (page2 left column)Lighthouse Commissioners: HMS Plumper, Capt. Richards left Esquimalt Wednesday morning to select a site for a lighthouse on Race Rocks…
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist18590812uvic/mode/1up

1934/12/30  Historic Race Rocks Lighthouse (recounts construction of lighthouse as well as story of Davies and tragedy)
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19341230/page/n26/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks

1970/04/26  Californians Come for Good Life. (California Sea Lions)
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19700426/page/n70/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks

1070/06/07 In Stiff Wind off Race Rocks Yacht Mishap Kills Four
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19700607/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks+rock

1970/08/09 Unusual Homecoming ..   ( Race Rocks Construction, light-keeper George Davies )
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19700809/page/n57/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks

1971/09/26 Dreaded Race Rocks : https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19710926/page/n75/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks+rock+race%E2%80%99s

1977/02/20  Race Rocks Treasure. ( Thomas Argyle)
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19770220/page/n71/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks

1977/10/02 Zone of Silence
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19771002/page/n80/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks

178/04/23 Sea Lions Transients of the Coast. ( Stellers sea lions) 
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist19780423/page/n82/mode/1up?view=theater&q=race+rocks

 

In Memoriam : Pam Birley

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For many years we had the privilege of having many contributions to the Race Rocks website by Pam Birley of Leicestershire, England. Pam was a regular observer on our remote-controlled cameras, and she made the most observations of any outside viewer on the website. For 10 years, from 2004 to 2013, she produced a monthly set of images, which we consider to be  a most valuable baseline record of the animal life at the ecological reserve during those years,  https://racerocks.ca/pam-birleys-images-of-race-rocks-2004-2013/

Clicking on   https://racerocks.ca/?s=Pam+Birley&submit=Search illustrates how prolific Pam was in reporting on unique as well as regular events at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve.  In 2005 and 2008  we were able to accompany Pam and her husband Dennis on trips to Race Rocks. She loved keeping track of activities of the sea birds and marine mammals and several times she was the first to report the birth of an elephant seal pup early in the year. We also mused that if a shingle was loose on a roof of one of the buildings, Pam would be the first to let us know. 

We are so sad to hear recently of her passing and we will miss her contributions greatly 

Race Rocks Ecological Reserve #97 Warden’s Report ,

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We departed Pedder Bay on Second Nature with Greg who was taking Joan Rosenburgh out for an Ecoguardian exchange.  Before leaving we noted a new perch location on the new docks at Pearson College .

 

On arrival, a nice greeting from the group of Northern and Californian sealions near the docks

I took photos of all the adult elephant elephant seals still at the reserve :

 

 

There have been many improvements that the Ecoguardians and the college staff have done since the last time i was here.One important improvement has been the installation of a new toilet system which seems to be a big improvement over past models.

I was interested in relocating the spot where a new geo-positioning system was installed last year, since I had been unable to locate it one time when i was out there. So these pictures are for future reference for relocation. When scientists come out to recheck , the results from satellite triangulation at this spot can indicate the amount of tectonic plate movement .

 

 

 

50th Anniversary of Ecological Reserves in British Columbia

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Often when we visit special ecological areas our observations are restricted to a limited view. In this video, we visited six diverse Ecological Reserves  with the goal of revealing some of their special features from  a distant viewpoint as well as a close up one. Under a special permit from BC Parks, Jamie Frith used his drone and a macrophotographic camera to enable us to present a unique perspective on the reserves.

This video was made for the Friends of Ecological Reserves with the support of BC Parks. We started the project in March 2021 and originally were only allowed by  BC Parks to film in  6 Ecological Reserves in the southern part of Vancouver Island due to restrictions of COVID 19. Plans to include ERs from the interior of the province also were not possible   As those restrictions were eased mid summer, we were able to extend our range and travel North to include the Nimpkish River ER,  in order to include a  representative area of mature Douglas Fir forest.

Ecological Reserves which we were able to include were: 

  • Nimpkish RIver  ER#118   start time- 1:20
  • San Juan RIdge  ER #83   start time- 5:58
  • Oak Bay Islands  ER #94    start time-11:02
  • Mount Tzuhalem  ER#112    start time- 16:38
  • San Juan River  ER#141   start time-  25:01
  • Race Rocks  ER#97    start time- 25.03

 

One of the goals of the Ecological reserves act is to provide protected places for research and education. Some reserves, especially those with seabird colonies  are closed to the public and only accessible  with a permit from BC Parks. Since it is illegal to fly a drone over any provincial (or federal) protected area without a permit, the use of the drone was possible only with permission and precautions for no disruption to animals.  As mentioned in several of the interviews, because of the sensitive ecological nature of the areas, the public is not encouraged to visit Ecological reserves.

THE 50th ANNIVERSARY: 
On April 2, 1971, the Government of British Columbia became the first jurisdiction in Canada to pass legislation to protect Ecological Reserves, places set aside primarily for ecological research and education, not recreation. The Ecological Reserve Act led to an Order in Council that established the first 29 ecological reserves on May 4, 1971. Fifty years later, British Columbia has 148 ecological reserves across the entire province. This video features just a few of the ones on Vancouver Island. In 2021, the BC government proclaimed April 2nd as Ecological Reserves Day in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Ecological Reserve Act.”

Protecting rare species and ecosystems is just one of the reasons to have an ER established. Equally important was protecting representative examples of natural ecosystems. See the wording in the Purpose section of the ER Act:
Garry Fletcher

Revisiting Intertidal Transect sites at Race Rocks

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Watden’s Report, September 3, 2021

I was fortunate to be able to get out to Race Rocks on one of the last morning low tides of the season. I wanted to revisit intertidal locations around the island in order to take photos of belt transects in locations I had recorded with baseline studies back in May of 1995. Photographic transects are valuable records in the event of changes that may happen along coastlines, usually caused by humans and/or by extreme weather events . 

 

Images taken in 1995 can be seen in this index on transects: https://racerocks.ca/ecology/ecological-monitoring/

The belt transect files with images will be linked here when they have been processed :

Peg 6  Peg5: Peg 5a  Peg 5b Peg 14a,  Peg 14b Peg 115. 

I was fortunate to have the assistance of Cedric Torres, the ecoguardian in doing the work on the transects.

 

At this time of year the island is populated by many young  glaucous-winged gulls, some fully fledged and other son various states of maturity. There were also a number of mortalities around the island which is typical for this time of year in a breeding colony.  In the following videos a number of behaviours of the chicks are shown .

Harbour seals with pups are hauled out on the southern most reef, note the current was still  ebbing in this video.

The California and Stellers sea lions have started coming back in large numbers. typically the Californias outnumber the Stelllers at this time of year.

Beneath the tower, the Californians( barking)  are predominant: but there is alos a mix of the growling Stellers.

 

On the East side cove a large group of Californian Sea lions were hauled out. The ones here were very skittish, any movement near the east end of the  house would startle them

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Other observations : two orcas in Race Passage ( surprizingly with no whale watching boats nearby.  The nice weather on Sept 3 brought out many whale watching boats and as usual they approach closer to the north side in front of the docks than necessary and well within the distance for viewing marine mammal colonies. The sea lions on that side are more habituated to the presence of humans and these boats than on other parts of the island, but many still go into an alert stage when the boats pass by.

Only a few pelagic cormorants were seen on the south west tip of the island.

The Calendula escapes from gardens of lightkeepers over 50 years ago still exist along the pathways, although the dry summer has been challenging. I was able to make a new species observation of these green blow flies on the flowers.

 

This summer with the heat dome experience on Vancouver Island there have been reports of damage to intertidal life. I took these images of high intertidal level barnacles in the arintertidal between peg 14 and 15. which show very little damage from this event,

We checked out Anita’s pool #6 . The intertidal life in the area has been unchanged for decades.

On the west side of the cliff near peg 5 , we took these images on the vertical rock face as records of barnacle distribution:

And near peg 15 we noted these finger limpets in a shaded rock at an extreme high intertidal elevation.

And a follow-up photo of The ill-fated tidepool #13 which was readjusted in the hurricane of 2006

 

 

 

 

 

Juan de Fuca CODAR System – Race Rocks (VROC) – Oceanographic Radar System

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CODAR antenna at Race Rocks

Click on this image for the data display on the Ocean Networks Canada website:

CODAR SeaSonde continuous surface current mapping and wave monitoring HF radar system.

This is taken from this page: http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/L22/current/TOOL1366/

http://vocab.nerc.ac.uk/collection/L22/current/TOOL1366/
SeaVoX Device Catalogue
Preferred Label CODAR SeaSonde continuous surface current mapping and wave monitoring HF radar system
Definition A high-frequency radar system designed for fixed deployment on the shore or on offshore structures. It measures continuous sea-surface current velocities and wavefield conditions such as significant wave height, dominant on-shore direction and dominant wave period. The CODAR SeaSonde transmits radio waves, receives Doppler-shifted reflected signals and processes the resulting data into radial ocean current velocities. The data from two or more radial stations can be combined into total velocities, i.e. ocean currents resolved into their N-S and E-W components. Total velocities are available only in regions of overlap with other stations. For wave measurements, the SeaSonde works on the principal of Bragg scattering; radial stations detect radar backscatter from ocean waves with wavelengths one-half the radar wavelength. The radar system is available in three configurations: Standard, Hi-Res and Long-Range. The SeaSonde’s spatial range varies from 15 – 220 km (dependent on the configuration), and offers 360 degrees coverage. The angular resolution is a 1-5 degree grid and is user selectable. Significant wave height accuracy is 7-15 percent, dominant on-shore direction accuracy is 5-12 degrees, wave period accuracy is 0.6 s, current accuracy is typically <7 percent of the total current velocity.

Seawater Salinity and Temperature, March, 2021

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DAILY SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE AND SALINITY OBSERVATIONS
Institute of Ocean Sciences, North Saanich, B.C., V8L 4B2
Station RACE ROCKS
Observer Rod King March
YSI ID: 24 Year: 2021
YSI YSI
Temp Sal
Day Time ºC ppt
1 15:00 7.9 32.1
2 19:00 7.9 31.9
3 9:00 7.5 31.6
4 17:30 7.8 31.4
5 20:10 7.8 31.7
6 20:37 7.7 31.6
7 19:59 7.7 31.6
8 21:08 7.7 31.5
9 23:30 7.8 31.5
10 13:00 8.0 31.0
11 11:38 8.0 31.5
12 10:40 8.0 31.5
13 10:00 8.0 31.5
14 18:00 8.0 31.6
15 19:21 8.0 31.6
16 21:27 8.0 31.9
17 20:22 7.8 32.0
18 21:10 7.9 31.9
19 20:23 7.9 31.5
20 19:12 7.9 31.4
21 8:20 7.9 31.5
22 9:07 7.8 31.4
23 11:37 7.8 31.4
24 11:01 8.0 31.0
25 11:11 8.0 31.2
26 20:12 8.1 31.4
27 16:00 8.2 31.6
28 15:50 8.2 31.4
29 22:50 8.0 31.5
30 18:11 8.2 31.8
31 20:05 8.2 31.7

Peregrine Falcon returns

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Pam Birley from England took this image on the remote camera 5 today.  Almost yearly, she has spotted peregrines on Great Race Rocks using the remote control cameras . 

Falco peregrinus: Peregrine falcon –The Race Rocks Taxonomy