had a couple of visitors today, come by for a little tour
Ecological
Turns out the elephant seal we have been identifying as female since it first turned up in December 2017 is actually a male. It is tagged, a green tag C887
I noticed he went through a major growth spurt since spotting him in December 2018 which is common in male elephant seals but not really in females, he is hanging out with the tagged elephant seal that had the pup here in January
the pups are doing great, swimming in the mornings when the adults are out of the water, they don’t interact much with the mature elephant seals
had someone out here to look at the desal, hopefully solving that issue soon
Maintenance
we’ve been getting a lot of solar but today is cloudy so I’ll run the generator and desal for a few hours
Ecological
the pups are having fun splashing around
there are 3 females altogether, one of them is quite young probably 2 or 3 years old the other two are much older and they will be molting soon, we should be expecting more females within the next couple weeks
no more male elephant seals around just the pup
not a lot of sea lions but there are plenty of harbour seals on the outer rocks
I have not spotted any goose nests yet but I’m sure it’ll happen soon, not looking forward to that, looks to be at least 8 nesting pairs on island
quite a few boats the last couple days, from canoes to sailboats and some people from the college
Maintenance
There has been so much solar, I don’t need to run the generator very much, so thats been really nice
Ecological
There was a pretty young sea lion pup on the rock by the crane today
the pups have not gone in the water today but they are wandering around quite a bit, so they will probably be splashing around soon, I think the female pup might have put her flipper in for a moment but I’m not sure
One of the mothers came back very briefly, the tagged female, pink tag T562, who gave birth to the female pup on Jan 4th was here for maybe a couple hours then she went back into the water
a few boats out today, fishing sailing and ecotours
Maintenance
Ran the desal for awhile, tank is topped up, hopefully, no more running it for hours every day
Ecological
It looks like the female pup might have gone in today, if she didn’t then she was very close, I will check again tomorrow morning if the pups are in the water
the male pup has been beside the house all day, so I know he didn’t go in
still one other male elephant on island, Bernard, the alpha
closer to 200 sea lions today, maybe due to the nice weather we’ve been having, also a lot of harbour seals on the south rock
the number of gulls is slowly increasing, at least from the noise level it seems like it
The desal quit on me a couple of times last night so I’m trying for a longer run tonight
Ecological
The pups still have not gone into the water, haven’t even gone near the jetty, they are both still beside the main house, they have been chewing on the grass a bit
the pigeon guillemots are back, looks to be a couple hundred of them
still around 100 sea lions, and about 50 harbour seals all together on the surrounding rocks
there are about 16 geese which I’m sure are starting to look for good nesting spots, there is also an increase in seagulls, I can tell from how noisy they are
Guy and Greg came by on Tuesday to help me with a fuel transfer which can get tricky when there’s a big elephant seal blocking the way
Maintenance
Going to move some more firewood around today, still unsure about pressure as my desalinator speed can’t quite keep up
Ecological
The pups have been hanging out together but still haven’t gone for a swim, should be soon the female pup is over 2 months old and the male pup is only a week younger than her
There are still 3 large males on the island, the youngest one will chase the pups around but no major injuries so far just a couple little bite marks
no other females on the island
by the looks of it, there are only around 100 sea lions left, wonder if they’ll stick out the summer until their buddies come back
No visitors lately, there have been a couple of ecotours cruising by
Maintenance
Just running the generator and trying to get the fresh water topped up so I can do more pressure washing
Ecological
The male pup found a puddle and was splashing around for a bit yesterday, the female pup was heading down there until the youngest male decided to go after them again.
There are 3 males on the island and the youngest one is always harassing the pups, the alpha is not as protective of these ones as he was of the two female pups last year. The pups have not been harmed just chased around a lot.
