Author Archives: Aziz Sonawalla

Very windy day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-30 knts W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: White caps, 1-2 meters
  • Some light showers during the afternoon

Boats/Visitors

  • Just a couple of ecotour boats today due to the strong wind.
  • Not much private boat traffic either

Birds

  • The seagulls have gotten noticeably more aggressive but still no signs of offspring

Marine Animals

  • There were four Elephant seals on the main island today – one male and three female. The male and one female seemed to occasionally get aggressive with each other, but no harm was done to either.
  • One of the females still seems to be undergoing the molting process.
  • Elephant Seal tagged B198 is still on the island and has been in the same spot over the last few days.

Overall, quite an uneventful day.

Boating violations and power trouble

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors

  • The calm weather attracted several ecotour boats as well as many private boats
  • I witnessed several boating violations:
    • 2 marina boats were getting really close to the sea lions. I had to call the marina and report the boats.
    • A private small boat tried to enter the ramp area near the jetty. I went up to the jetty and asked them to reverse out of that area.
    • A whale watching boat almost entered the lighthouse island and the south islands, but stopped short when I went outside and made myself visible.

Technical

  • Over the last 48 hours, for some reason, the batteries were draining faster than usual and even running the generator for 2+ hours daily wasn’t enough. This morning the batteries came to a critical low of 18%. I got in touch with Guy over IM and we troubleshooted the cause to be excess power consumption from the student house. After closing a few switches and unplugging some machines, I ran the generator for 4 hours and was able to bring the batteries back up to 100%. The bright sun all day today definitely also helped juice the batteries up faster.

Ecological

  • Noticed several more seagull eggs today. None hatched so far
  • Fewer elephant seals on the shore today

Seagulls lay eggs

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-20 NW
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply/Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Few ecotour boats scattered through the day

Ecological

  • Spotted a young elephant seal (about 3-4 ft in length) near the jetty.
  • Seagulls have laid their eggs! I estimate about 30-40 eggs on the island so far, definitely growing in number. Some seagulls are still building their nest/adding more straw
  • Spotted a tagged elephant seal near the jetty. Tag number was B198. Photo below

 

Photos of the tagged Elephant seal:

Census Day!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-30 NW
  • Sky: Mostly clear
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • one or two scattered ecotour boats
  • Guy brought 3 tour groups, only one of which docked. The tides and currents were uncooperative for the other two groups. The group that came ashore spent about 30 mins visiting the student residence and lighthouse.

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 16
  • california sea lions – 8
  • elephant seals – 3 female, 1 male
  • gulls – 200
  • pigeon guillemots – 105
  • oyster catchers – 12
  • geese – 4
  • eagles – 4

 

New Ecoguardian gets Orca welcome!

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I took over the Ecoguardianship this morning from Laas, and spent the day familiarizing myself with the systems here.

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-35 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • Guy dropped me off early this morning, and brought three other visitors with him who spent about an hour touring the island
  • Quite a few ecotour boats went by today. Most of them spent their time near the kelp patch just north of the jetty – possibly due to otter presence as I understand from the past ecoguardian.
  • Two whale-watching boats were able to catch a sight of the orcas that swam through the middle channel

Ecological

  • About 9 elephant seals, 7 females and 2 males. No changes from yesterday
  • No sign of baby seagulls yet. Noticed a few broken eggs though possibly due to accidents or attacks by other birds.
  • 2 orcas spent about 30 mins in the middle channel this evening, playing with the currents. Two whale watching boats were able to catch a sight of them. What a great first day!