Shipping traffic and pollution

This is part 2 of 11 ships go sailing by.  I took these photos this morning of a ship and its extra long trail of exhaust which had not dissipated. Thinking of pollution and looking at the ships cloud-like exhaust reminded my of something I read that I’d like to share, but first a little bit about ship pollution.

There is accidental pollution from loss of cargo, fuel or oil, and there is operation pollution from the discharge of sewage, ballast water, tank washings, from anti-fouling systems, tank venting and from engine exhaust. In terms of exhaust, shipping contributes about 3% of world’s greenhouse gas emissions and 20% of the nitrogen oxides and 10% of the sulfur oxides emissions. The burning of bunker oil in the ship’s diesel engines produces the NOx, SOx, particulates, carbon monoxides, carbon dioxides, hydrocarbons, and other subsequently formed secondary chemicals … all bad, all contributing to climate change.

International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) addresses the concerns of pollution of the marine environment. The requirements for nitrous oxide emissions from diesel engines, sulphur content of fuel, fuel oil quality, emissions of ozone-depleting substances, incinerators, emissions of volatile organic compounds etc, are in Annex VI Regulations for the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships, which came into effect in 2005.

Since then the IMO set new sulfur-emissions regulations for implementation by larger ships beginning in January 2020, reducing sulfur by 80%. This should help right? It turns out, it made climate warming worse! The sulfur dioxide reacts with water vapour to produce aerosols that reflect sunlight and those clouds that follow ships, they actually help cool the oceans. This was published in the journal Nature and they suggest geoengineer and marine cloud brightening may be a viable method to temporarily cooling the climate. So…Who’d a thunk? What a mess we are in.

Links

1. Shipmap.org – an animated presentation of all the global shipping traffic over a one year period, with a CO2 ticker in the header.
2. Read the Nature article “Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming”
3. Environmental impacts of Shipping – Wikipedia

Wildlife notes:

There is not much to report. I found a large creamy white egg in the killing fields by the house. It was the Canada goose egg from the nest on the opposite side of house, under the back stairs.  Why the gulls would take it all the way around the house to destroy it is baffling. I wonder if she recognized her egg while looking for something to eat – it has been weeks since she ate.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• cleaned things in the house (bleached and scrubbed the south and north tiled entry ways in the Keeper’s house and other things)

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 11
• Private: 1

Weather

Gentle southwest breeze throughout the day, moderate westerly breeze in the evening. Skies overcast, periods of rain in the late afternoon and evening. Daytime temperatures: low 11, high 14.

What’s with those spindly legs and weird knees?

Those aren’t weird looking knees on those thin sticks of a leg, they are ankles and the sea gull is standing on its toes. This form of locomotion is called digitigrade and is also used by cats, dogs and many mammals. Humans are plantigrade (we walk on our whole foot) and horses are unguligrade (walk on their hoofs – analogous to a keratinous nail or claw).

Their foot bones are fused and upright when they are standing. We see their ankle and only the bottom scale-covered portion of their lower leg bones (about 20% of the lower leg). The rest of their lower leg, their knee and shortened upper leg bone is not visible to us.

Sea gulls have three forward toes and one pointing back (the hallux which is equivalent to our big toe) but it is reduced in size and difficult to see.  Their lobation and webbing is called palmate. Some examples of local birds with the four types of webbing: Palmate (gulls), Totipalmate (cormorants), Semipalmated (herons, some plovers and sandpipers), Lobate (black oystercatcher).

Gulls are an all around great bird. They are awesome flyers and nimble, quick runners, unlike the waddling Canada goose.  And if you ever hear a person described as having “chicken legs”, you know they got it wrong.

Facility work

• cleaned solar panels
• cleaned outside windows on the Keeper’s House

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 12
• Private: 0

Weather

Fresh breeze all day, WNW in the morning backing to WSW by early evening. Skies overcast to cloudy. Daytime temperatures: low 11, high 13.

 

There is a noisome odor at the outer reaches of the island, on the rocky shores, where the density of gulls have encrusted the rocks in guano. The molting elephant seal is no different – its shed skin and hair remains malodorous for years. But in the fall, the sea lions dog piled outside the electric fence outstink them all.

Noisome is Merriam-Websters word of the day and I threw in a couple more from
“10 Obscure Words for Bad Odors” – Merriam-Webster (read full version)

• Noisome – very unpleasant or disgusting
• Malodorous – having a bad odor
• Outstink –  smell worse than
• Nidor – smell of cooking or burning meat or fat
• Mephitic – offensive to the sense of smell
• Stinkaroo – stinker
• Hircine – resembling a goat in smell
• Alliaceous – smell or taste of garlic or onion
• Kakidrosis – secretion of sweat of a disagreeable odor
• Reekingly – with a reek

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• I am almost done cleaning and organizing the Tank Shed – just the back of door and one more wall to wipe. Another immensely satisfying job which took many days to complete.

The Tank Shed houses the large diesel Tidy Tank and fuel drums (for the generator and furnaces), the portable water pump which gets rolled to the Jetty to pump up fresh or salt water, electric fence supplies, the unit for measuring seawater temperature and salinity, the computer for the Davis weather station, and tools, paint, grease etc. 

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 5
• Private: 1

Weather

Fog in the morning, clearing by noon and cloudy in the afternoon. Winds moderate to fresh westerlies increasing to near gale force by late afternoon. Daytime temperatures: low 9, high 11.

Wildlife notes:

I haven’t seen any gull chicks hatching yet but the gulls continue to build up and pad their nests. The elephant seals usually lay partially in the water on the boat ramp or float around the Jetty blowing bubbles. The female was in the water for a long time today and actually went for a swim. I saw her on her return trip at East Beach. The East Beach oystercatcher chicks are doing well, growing quickly and darting about. I figure they are around two weeks old. The Keeper’s House and Energy Building oystercatcher pairs are still incubating their eggs.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• topped up battery fluid levels
• continued cleaning/organizing the Tank Shed

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 7
• Private: 2

Weather

Light to gentle southwest breeze becoming westerly in the early evening. Skies overcast in the morning, clear by late afternoon. Daytime temperatures: low 11 , high 13.

 

Wildlife notes:

The female elephant is free and clear of her old self. Today is day 19 of her molt. The last little bit that stuck to her back since day 14 of her molt (photo) took 5 days to shake.

This female arrived here on May 18th (photo), started her molt on June 4th (photo) and may stay for another 2 or 3 weeks before she heads back to the sea. The elephant seals usually take the same route to the boat ramp for their daily soak(s) and have their favourite spots in the grass to sleep. They are heavy and spend so much time in the grass that they have created pathways and depressions lined with their shed hair and skin.

Facility Work

I spend a few hours in the Tank Shed today. It is getting cleaned up, easier to find things, with more counter space and now, room to walk around in there. I cleaned one of the two windows today.  It took a while as the channels were filled with gunk and I had to dig out a razor blade to scrape the glass. So much brighter in there and very satisfying to look out a clean window.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 9
• Private: 2

Weather

Moderate south west winds most of the day, switching to fresh westerlies in the early evening (they called for winds up to 30 knots so I lowered the flag this evening but they didn’t materialize). Overcast. Daytime temperatures: low 11, high 15.

 

 

 

Wildlife notes

We received a measurable amount of rain last night. It cleaned the windows, the solar panels, and soaked the birds. I expected the air to smell fresh after the cleansing as it normally would, but the smell of the gull poo was somehow more aromatic. Other than the absence of the sea lions and the typical dozen or so eagle fly overs there is nothing of note to report on.

The gulls spend a lot of time preening and are usually very white and clean looking. They also have good hygiene around their nests and move about 4 to 5 feet away to relieve themselves. I had a laugh when I saw the gull who built a nest two feet from the basement door – a inconvenient spot for me and annoying to the gull who is disturbed often. The gull was a dirty mess after the rain turned the soil there into mud.

Facility work

I had a sleepless night and felt off today so I did not accomplish much other than a bit of tidying and organizing in the pantry looking at expiry dates.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 5
• Private: 4

Weather

Fog in the morning, cloudy skies remainder of the day. Rain ending by 11am. Winds light to gentle, direction variable. Seas calm. Daytime temperature: low 10, high 13.

Of the three collective nouns for guillemots, I like the word bazaar the best but in the present context here and based on the behaviours I mostly get to see up close, colony would apply best when observed on land. The weekly census numbers for the guillemots range greatly. I am certain they are under represented in my census counts (blue values below) so today I decided to focus on counting these birds. They are notoriously difficult to survey, coming and going depending on time of day and the tide.

	today			Census day counts
		13-Jun	07-Jun	30-May	23-May	15-May	08-May
Pigeon Guillemots	193	36	82	6	30	78	153

Today I counted 193 and two hours later most of them had vanished. What I counted does not include the birds incubating their eggs in burrows. There are a lot more burrows than I had previously thought and they are not just in the obvious places like the large areas with rocks and boulders where they congregate (whether natural beaches or rock piles created from blasting or construction, like around the helipad). There are nests outside of these areas all over the island in small scattered rock piles or human made structures like walls. Below are some photos of unexpected nesting locations. If I were to hazard a wild guess, I think there could be 40 nests.

The pigeon guillemots form loyal pairs and both parents incubate the eggs. They are very social and vocal birds (listen to their calls) with incredible red feet and mouths. They aren’t the best flyers but are incredible swimmers (video of a swimming guillemot). The incubation period is 26 to 32 days so some may hatch while I am here.

Gulls also have a variety of collective nouns (colony, flock, screech, congregation…) depending on what they are doing. Here during nesting season my name for them is a “spectacle” of gulls. For oystercatchers, I found reference to a parcel or colony of oystercatchers. And for eagles, a congress, convocation, soar, hunt, watch, or shrewdness of eagles.

Today I found a gull nest with blue eggs right beside the CODAR installation. The incubating parent looked like a regular glaucous winged gull.

Facility work

• cleaned the panels
• cleaned parts of the house

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 18
• Private: 1

Weather

Skies overcast to partly cloudy. Strong westerly breeze most of the day, near gale force by evening. Daytime temperatures: low 10, high 13.

We were struggling in May and early June, not being able to produce enough solar power to meet our needs. The months were sunny enough on many days yet we were operating with a deficit, pulling more out of the battery over a 24 hour period than was put in during daylight hours from the solar panels. The maximum we were able to produce from the solar panels in any hour was 3.4 kW, about 40% less power than was produced in 2024 at a similar time of year (same daylength and sun angle).

On June 11th a technician from Viridian came to inspect our solar system and I wanted to report on what a difference it has made.  He found two dead panels which were not side by side. Since the panels are connected in pairs, the dead panels rendered their partners also ineffective so in essence we had four dead panels.  He rearranged two panels and took the dead ones off the roof.  He also replaced all of the connectors as many were failing/corroded. They had been replaced about 5 years ago but the conditions are extreme on the roof being so close to the sea. The panels are reaching the end of their life span and will need replacing in the near future but with the improvements made we are now producing only 20% less power than was produced in 2024 at this time.  It has made a big difference and on sunny days were are now able to operate without a deficit and have the batteries reach 100% more often. It is great to have one less thing to stress over.

Below is a graph from the OpticsRE software package for June 16 2025, the last day it was consistently sunny. The good things to point out are:

• coloured circles on the upper right – more was put into the battery than taken out
• 14:00 hrs – 5.7 kWh were achieved (green bar – solar production, light blue – energy taken from the battery, dark blue – energy put into the battery)
• 16:00 hrs – the batteries reached 100% charge! (the top line is % SOC – stage of charge, the bottom line is battery volts)

Wildlife notes

Nothing unusual occurred today. Tomorrow I plan to write about the pigeon guillemots.

Facility notes

I spent some time cleaning and organizing the Tank Shed. Finding a bag labelled assorted cotter pins, I decided to free up more counter space by mounting the pair of new tires for the cart. It was straight forward but having not done it before it was satisfying and for once, something took less time than expected.

• cleaned solar panels
• replaced tires on the cart
• continued cleaning the Tank Shed

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 2
• Private: 0

DND

Lots of warships on the water today, even a submarine, all part of TRIDENT FURY, an international maritime training exercise. Good thing I didn’t count ships sailing by today.

Weather

Rain ending in the morning. Skies overcast, clearing by mid-day. Winds veering to WNW and strengthening to gale force in the afternoon, subsiding to fresh breeze by evening. Daytime temperatures: low 12, high 14.

Wildlife notes

Eagle eyes doesn’t refer to me – I miss much of what is happening here. But the eagle is known to see the smallest detail and could hardly miss three sea gull nests around it within a 6 foot radius, all filled with eggs. For ten minutes an eagle stood on the ground with several options of food around it and chose none. The sea gulls and the oystercatchers took turns diving at the eagle. The oystercatchers got involved because ten feet away was the West Jetty oystercatchers nest.

After the eagle left I went over to inspect the gull nests expecting a disaster but two nests had three eggs each, one had two eggs and not a broken shell to be found. I went to where I last saw the West Jetty pair’s nest expecting to find the chicks torn apart.  Two very well camouflaged oystercatcher chicks were motionless, wedged in beside a rock. Gull chicks are equally obedient and freeze when they receive the call from their parents. They are also equally well camouflaged for their nesting environment.  Below is a photo I took last year in June of a newly hatched gull chick to compare with the colouring of the new oystercatcher chicks… marvels of nature!

Having verified that the West Jetty chicks hatched and have survived, I updated the oystercatcher nesting map. Two nests still have unhatched eggs. I also learned why the oystercatchers were hounding the eagle with the blue fish on the southwest beach yesterday. They were the Coast Guard oystercatchers that had moved their chicks off the high rocks by the fog horn down to the beach – a long walk for a little chick. Their well hidden chicks were just meters away from the eagle. They were moved to the beach between June 13th and June 16th.

One item of note is the lack of sea lions today.  The female elephant seal is on day 14 of her molt. The last bits seem hard to shake and from a distance she looks like she is sporting dread locks.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• topped up battery fluid levels
• continued with organizing and cleaning the Tank Shed

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 11
• Private: 1

Weather

Winds light and variable in the morning, moderate westerly breeze in the afternoon. Skies cloudy. Daytime temperatures: low 11, high 16.