Author Archives: Laas Parnell

CAS Week

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Weather: 

  • Sky: Weather is all over the place, blowing and raining one minute, sunny the next
  • Visibility: 10-15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-20 knots NE
  • Water: some chop coming and going

Boats/Visitors: 

    • despite it being wet and cold there were still a few tour boats cruising around
    • Guy dropped off Laura and her marine scientists for CAS week so they will be staying in the student house

Ecological

  • So many sea lions, here is an updated census
  • Census
    • Sea Lions – 827 (247 Steller and 580 California)
    • Harbour Seals – 22
    • Gulls – 385
    • Cormorants – 140
    • Fox Sparrows – 10ish, harder to count these guys
    • Canada Geese – 22
    • Black Turnstones – 50
    • Eagles – 2
    • Great Blue Heron – 1
    • possibly 1 sea otter, bit hard to see from this distance
  • Also, still spotting 1 or two humpbacks each day

Barred Owl Sighting

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Weather: 

  • Sky: Overcast, a bit of sun midday
  • Visibility: 10-15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-20 knots NE
  • Water: swells less than a metre

Boats/Visitors: 

    • A few boats cruising by today, mostly tour boats
    • Greg came by today with a group of visitors

Ecological

  • I saw a barred owl last night around 7pm when I went to turn off the generator but it was too dark to get a photo, here is a link to our taxonomy page on the barred owl and the last time it was sighted in November 2010,
  • There was also a greater yellow legs running around which flew off before I get a photo of it
  • The elephant seal has been hanging out around the jetty for a few days but took off yesterday and I don’t expect to see her returning anytime soon
  • plenty of sea lions around and I’m having a difficult time keeping them away from the lighthouse, they come back as soon as I am out of their line of sight, would like to extend the fence to protect the burial cairns and lighthouse but we just don’t have all the material we need, we’ll see about that next season though

Branded Sea Lions

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Weather: 

  • Sky: Overcast
  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-15 knots NE
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors: 

    • A few boats cruising by today, mostly pleasure crafts and a couple tour boats and even a couple sailboats
    • No visitors today but yesterday Greg came by with a couple guests and also help with some decluttering moving fuel around and firewood, now that its getting a bit colder out I will be using the fireplace a lot more
    • There is a particular dive boat that has been coming around almost daily with divers who are getting pretty close to the animals

Ecological

  • there are quite a few of branded sea lions around, I have photos of a few of them but I could not clearly make out a couple of them but managed to get some clear shots
  • the young elephant seal is still here which is unusual but I expect her to be on her way soon
  • we also have a stellar who appears to have something around his neck
  • and a few adorable young stellers on the rock in front of the crane

Tagged Elephant GE103

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Weather: 

  • Sky: Clear and sunny
  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-15 knots NE
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors: 

    • A few boats cruising by today, mostly pleasure crafts and a couple tour boats and even a couple sailboats and kayaks on this beautiful day
    • Greg will also be dropping by this afternoon to bring some water and food

Ecological

  • the tagged elephant seal that the previous ecoguardians named Eric turns out to be an Erica, she is female
  • It is unusual for a juvenile elephant to be sticking around an area for this length of time, typically they would be moving along the coast now
  • There are so many sea lions right now and it seems she does not mind the smell or the noise but it isn’t unusual for elephant seals and sea lions to be hanging out together

Beautiful Day

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Sky: Sunny
  • Wind: 5-10 kn NW
  • Water: Flat

Visitors/Boats: 

  • More boat traffic on the nice days and there was also a dive boat with a couple divers on the east side of the island, it looked recreational

Ecological

  • The little steller is still around and adorable
  • seems like even more sea lions today but that might be  because they are so concentrated around the helipad and the jetty but at least they are away from the burial cairns and the generator room/lighthouse

Maintenance

  • Fuel and water have been delivered recently and hopefully in the next week we get more decluttering done around the island and start bucking up some more firewood so we have enough to last the year since driftwood does take months to dry out enough to be usable

Student Visit

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Sky: overcast
  • Wind: 15-20 kn NW
  • Water: Little choppy under 1 foot

Visitors/Boats: 

  • The past few days we have seen more pleasure crafts than tour boats and these pleasure crafts get way too close and I can never find them on the radio because it is very hard to know which channel they are on
  • A group students stayed Saturday night to film around the island looking at ecological impacts which around here are mostly due to sea lions trampling all the green and turning it into mud

Ecological

  • The little steller is still around, haven’t noticed any new injuries on any of the sea lions
  • the sea lion that was by the jetty before that seemed lethargic and didn’t really respond to people left for 2 maybe 3 days and is now back in the same spot and it is much more energetic and responsive than before
  • the number of sea lions seems to have gone up from the last census by about 100, will post more numbers below
  • I have been consistently seeing about two humpback whales per day

Maintenance

  • The fence now only needs typically one minor repair per day, the sea lions are getting used to staying away from it
  • I still need to stay on top of clearing them away from certain areas, they seem to not crowd the entrance to the generator room anymore or the burial cairns as much, but they have taken a strong liking to the grass around the lighthouse

Census

  • Sea Lions – 600, most of them are californias
  • Harbour Seals – 30
  • Gulls – 40
  • Canada Geese – 24
  • Fox Sparrow – 3
  • Turnstones – 30
  • Cormorants – 50
  • Sea Otter – 1
  • Humpback Whales – about 2 per day

Little Steller

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Sky: overcast
  • Wind: 15-20 kn NW
  • Water: Little choppy under 1 foot

Visitors/Boats: 

  • Since I got back on Tuesday there have been approximately 15 boats per day, the number varies a bit each day
  • On tuesday and thursday we had visitors from the eagle wing crew come for a tour on Race Rocks. It was so nice for them to be able to come check out what Race Rocks looks like from the land after seeing it from the water so many times
  • Greg and Guy are coming by today so we can do a more in depth orientation on the projects and maintenance going on around the island

Ecological

  • After my walk around I noticed a couple interesting things, first there was a young steller, not a baby but he was still nursing.
  • Then an elephant seal, which was so nice to see and it had a green tag on it. Unfortunately by the time I got my camera it was already gone.
  • There have also been humpbacks nearby lately, the past two days there have been 4. Yesterday when the eagle wing crew was here was saw a fishing boat getting way to close to the whales, the whales were clearly upset and one jumped right out of the water because of it. Luckily we saw one of the whale watching boats from BC tours and got a hold of them and they let us know they had a word with the fishing boat about keeping its distance from the animals.

Maintenance

  • The fence still needs to be repaired twice a day but the sea lions are starting to stay away from the entrance to the generator room with regular clearing which will also start happening around the burial cairns between the student house and the helicopter pad. The sea lions have started shifting the stones around a lot and we want to preserve this important historic area.

I’m Back

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I am back on Race Rocks, this is my third year but I’m only staying for 3 months this time. I am very happy to be back and look forward to a beautiful and productive autumn.

Today I plan to take a good look around the island and see if any of the sea lions have any injuries and just do a good once over.

I’ve spent the last 5 months with the whale watching community and here are some things I have learned. The whale watchers care about these animals as much as I do and our goal is education. We enjoy sharing this beautiful ocean and our knowledge of these animals with other people. The observations I’ve made during this summer are that many commercial boats do keep a respectful distance. The whale watching boats actually help me out as an ecoguardian. There are plenty of areas in the reserve that are out of my sight and if they see an injured animal they notify me and tell me where it is so I can monitor it and let marine mammal rescue know. If someone is doing activity within the reserve that shouldn’t be like fishing or snorkeling in a dangerous area they let that boat know that they can’t do that. I have a very difficult time trying to get a hold of pleasure crafts because they are always on different radio channels so this really helps me when others look out for the safety of the reserve and others within the reserve.

This island is a special place for many people and so much goes into protecting this ecological reserve and I just wanted to acknowledge a group of people who have helped in many ways to protect Race Rocks.

 

Barn Swallows

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SW
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • had a little tour from the college come by this morning
  • the day before there were a couple of people from UVIC setting up equipment to monitor earthquake activity

Maintenance

  • The blue water tank at the side of the house is being cleaned out and filled at the college and will be transported here to fill up our freshwater tank until we get a new desalinator put in place

Ecological

  • Maybe 15 stellers and 30 Californias around, the numbers have gone down
  • two adorable little barn swallows have been hanging around the house
  • 11 elephants, the numbers will be dropping soon as everyone has finished molting and will need to go hunting soon
  • a couple of hundred pigeon guillemots around today
  • about 8 oystercatchers who should be setting up their nests soon
  • still around 16 geese and at least 14 goslings, three nests hatched
  • a few hundred seagulls buildings their nests
  • the cormorants and harbour seals are sticking to the outer rocks
  • two bald eagles out on north rock today

Other

  • was stuck in a fog bank yesterday and it has been very cloudy today so I will run the generator a bit
  • I leave on Tuesday and our new eco-guardians Mara and Kai will be taking over for the summer

Barn Swallows on the deck railing

Goslings

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Summer has really set in and there will be all kinds of boats going by for the next few months

Maintenance

  • Just attempting to clean out our water tank on the side of the house so we can get some fresh water brought to race rocks, top up our fresh water tank

Ecological

  • Still not a lot of sea lions around
  • there is still 12 elephant seals, a couple of them are scattered around but most of them are basking in the sun on the platform
  • there is a total of 14 goslings, the last nest only had two of them hatch which was interesting because I hadn’t addled that nest
  • the seagulls are in the process of building their nests and the oyster catchers look like they might be nesting soon too