Visitors & Elephant Seal Pup

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles, pretty clear all day
  • Wind: consistently windy throughout the day
  • Sky: cloudy with some sun
  • Water: a bit choppy during the day with the winds but mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a group of 10 visitors doing a team building exercise on the island for most of the day.
  • Didn’t see a lot of boat activity, one Rockfish diving boat was around for a bit.

Ecological

  • The two large male Elephant Seals are still on the island. They’ve moved closer to each other but I haven’t seen any interaction between the two of them.
  • There is a very young elephant seal pup by the jetty. Our guess of it’s age is around 8-10 months.

 

Other

  • It was really nice socializing with people after 17 days of little to no face-to-face human interaction aside from the occasional food and fuel drop-offs.

 

Another Elephant Seal & Gale Force Winds

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: Light breezes throughout the day then very high, Gale force winds came in around 9 or 10 pm of up to 39 knots for an hour or two then died down to a steady 20-25 knots with rain.
  • Sky: cloudy with some sun
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy during the day then very rough throughout the night.

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw 6 or 7 sail boats out together and 1 diving boat
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Had a group of 12-14 Black Turnstones munching grass together in front of the house.
  • Our resident elephant seal Bernard has been joined by another large male elephant seal. They seem to be keeping their distance from each other for now.

Other

  • The view of the Olympic Mountains has been beautiful and clear these last few days. A nice change from the cloak of fog and clouds that often cover them from sight.

 

Census, birds and mammals

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 6-10 NE throughout day
  • Sky: cloudy with some sun
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • had a few eco tour boats cruise by
  • no visitors today

Ecological

Census:

  • California Sea Lions – 120
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 102
  • Harbour Seals – 4
  • Seagulls – 252
  • Eagles – 5
  • Cormorant – 22
  • Canadian Geese – 12
  • Black Turnstone – 3

Juvenile Eagles in the Air

Weather

  • Visibility: low visibility this morning but cleared up by noon
  • Wind: very calm until early afternoon then picked up to high 20s
  • Sky: cloudy with a bit of sun
  • Water: calm and flat until the wind picked up then it got rough

Boats/Visitors

  • had one whale watching boat cruise by the island
  • Kyle came by with fuel and food. Thanks Kyle!

Ecological

  • The large brown raptor I saw yesterday was more likely a young 2-3 year old bald eagle. Saw three of them today playing in the wind and picking at something on the ground.
  • Bernard the elephant seal is still on the island

Hungry Gulls & Solo Elephant Seal

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles, clear day
  • Wind: 2-9 knots NE
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • had the same whale watching boat cruise by again
  • no visitors today

Ecological

  • small group of canada geese stopped by today
  • saw two seagulls fight over a fish
  • large elephant seal was on west rocks by himself today

Mystery Raptor

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 6-10 NE throughout day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • had one whale watching boat cruise by
  • no visitors today

Ecological

  • saw a large brown raptor of some kind. I think it was a Red-tailed Hawk
  • lots of killdeer around
  • large elephant seal male is still on the island

Other

  • a lot of DND blasts today, very startling for the sea lions.

Less Sea Lions Today

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 5-13 NE throughout day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • didn’t see any eco tours today
  • lots of shipping vessels in the distance as usual
  • no visitors today

Ecological

  • number of sea lions hanging around seems to be going slightly down
  • consistent number of seagulls and cormorants

Other

  • lots of DND blasts today.

DND Blast and a Surprise Audience

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 12-16 NE throughout the day
  • Sky: sunny, very few clouds
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Had one large eco tour boat full of passengers sneak up on me and yell “Hello” as a group. That was fun (:
  • lots of large shipping vessels passing by including two huge logging barges

Ecological

  • still a decent amount of sea lions around
  • there is another, smaller harbour seal pup hanging out now too
  • Bernard (the elephant seal) is back!
  • haven’t seen any canadian geese in a few days

Other

  • had more large DND blasts go off from Rocky Point that shook the house and startled birds today.

Eagle vs Crow

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 12-15 NE
  • Sky: mostly sunny
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • noticed one larger tour boat cruise by

Ecological

  • elephant seal pup is back
  • seemed to be more stellar sea lions around today than usual on the east rocks
  • saw an eagle snatch a crow chick and fight off it’s parents in flight. RIP lil crow.

Notes

  • the weather has been fantastic this week with lots of sun!

First Week as Ecoguardian

Weather

  • Visibility: Very foggy early morning but cleared right up by 8:30am
  • Wind: 11-16 NE throughout the day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Had about 7 boats cruise by in the last week
  • had a small tour come ashore last saturday morning of pearson college students

Ecological

  • had a young harbour seal that was on the island for a few days but is gone now
  • there are a pair of eagles hanging around for the last week
  • large male elephant seal was here for 6 days and left last night
  • caught a quick glimpse of what looked like a small sea otter running by the jetty yesterday morning

Other

  • had a very large blast go off from Rocky Point that shook the house and startled birds.

Notes

  • enjoyed my first week here at Race Rocks!