Category Archives: Animal census

January 17th Census

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Looking South from to the Lighthouse towards the Elwha.

Weather: Overcast morning, with a sunny afternoon. Winds 15-25knots. Big storm on January 11th that blew our doors and windows open.

Visitors/Traffic: After a week of no visitors we got 4 boats today: a whale whatching boat, 2 small fishing boats and a yellow sailboat that was very interested in getting in close to the jetty.

Ecological Notes: Immediately after the last birth a new female showed up on the island (January 11th). Cheermeister’s mom left him on January 12th (21 days of nursing) after making with the Beachmaster 76 times over 3 days. I didn’t inspect every event, so the total could higher than that, but it was an impressive feat. The Beachmaster has shown no interest in any of the other females. There are still 2 large males on the island, with the Beachmaster (previously referred to as Bernard) staying with the females and the other male hanging out around our compost.

The new seal gave birth last night, bringing our total seal pups to 4!

Jocelyn gave birth to her pup last night with lots of shouting and fanfare.

Elephant Seal flippers look so ridiculous when they’re born, just oversized and floppy. Kinda like puppy paws.

Tons of eagles on the island this morning, which usually coincides with a reduction in other birds counted.

Cheermeister: fat and alone. I don’t understand how he still gets fatter after being weaned.

The Beachmaster checking if anyone is interested in mating yet.

Census:

Gulls: 136

Cormorants: 360

Eagles: 40

Turnstones: 13

Elephant Seals: 9 [2 bulls, 3 females, 4 pups]

Steller Sea Lions: 142

California Sea Lions: 155

Harbour Seals: 6

 

Peace descends over the nursery. Seriously though, Elephant Seals are soooo loud.

Bonham over drumming next to the compost where the Beachmaster can’t find him.

December 23 Wildlife Census with a new baby Elephant Seal

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Weather: A bit of light sleet/snow, light winds ~15knots.

Visitors/Traffic: 2 Whale watching boats, and a supply run by Gregg.

Ecological Notes: Baby Elephant Seal born last night! Around 22:00 at night our resident female (pink tag #2, also referred to as ‘Beverly’). The Beachmaster was present for the birth, and initially I thought he might be looking to kill the pup to force the female into estrus. Nope, just an observer, sniffing and mouthing the newborn pup, but no damage caused.

Newborn Elephant Seal Pup, which we’ve taken to calling ‘Cheermeister’.

Lots of eagles present in today’s Census,  which may be related to the reduced number of birds counted.

Census:

Gulls: 164

Cormorants (mostly Brant’s): 430

Eagles: 13

Elephant Seals: 5

Steller Sea Lions: 329

California Sea Lions: 464

Turnstones: 22

Green Wing Teal: 4

Long Tailed Duck: 5

Canada Geese: 2

Steller Sea Lion haulout to the SE of the lighthouse.

It’s a Cormorant party.

Eagles on the island mean that a lot of the birds are choosing to be elsewhere.

Any space without Sea Lions and eagles mean the birds can really stretch their wings.

Elephant Seals pick the weirdest spots to sleep. Sometimes it’s inconvenient for maintenance, and sometimes it just looks gross. Soaking your wounded nose in a poopy puddle? Gross.

 

December 18 2020 Wildlife (Census)

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Visitors/Traffic: A few whale watching boats and small fishing vessels came out to look at the sea lions.

Ecological Notes: One new observation of a gull acting weird before dying and being eaten by eagles. Currently there are 4 elephant seals on Race Rocks: One dominant male, one submissive male, one juvenile male, and one pregnant female. Looks like this female showed up a little earlier than last year, which may be an attempt to birth and nurse in peace before other mothers show up.

Census:

Gulls: 318

Cormorants (mostly Brant’s): 816

Eagles: 3

Elephant Seals: 4

Steller Sea Lions: 330

California Sea Lions: 144

Turnstones: 11

 

 

Clear Skies + Elephant Seals! (census)

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky mostly clear, overcast in late afternoon
  • Wind 0-10 knots N
  • Sea state: calm, glassy!

Visitors: A small number of pleasure crafts trickling through. Only a handful of tourism vessels over the weekend and a few through the late week.

Ecological Notes: 

  • This week has brought some of our favorite visitors to Race Rocks: elephant seals! We’ve been joined by two huge male elephants seals as well as two younger pups that look to be only a year or so old. Unfortunately we haven’t seen any tagged elephant seals yet so that’s all we know for now.
  • We’ve still been spotted seagulls displaying odd behavior. We’ve noticed a total of 7 over the past month.
  • Whale sightings have slowed down now, seemingly as the weather gets colder and salmon runs slow. We have still been seeing around one per day but the sightings are less consistent.
  • Today we noticed a tiny sea lion pup nursing! We mostly only see male sea lions on race rocks, but recently we’ve been noticing very small sea lions arriving. It’s hard to tell the sex of sea lions from a distance so this was the first female we’ve identified in the crowd.
  • The bald eagles have continued to visit to fish and hunt gulls in the early to late morning. They particularly like to sit under the tower containing camera 5, sometimes up to 10 at once! The color variation throughout their different life stages is particularly striking.

Census:

  • 54 Harbour seals
  • 177 Stellar sea lions
  • 233 California sea lions
  • 4 Elephant seals
  • 275 Brandt’s + pelagic cormorants (too far away to distinguish)
  • 6 Double-crested cormorants
  • 5 Surfbirds
  • 3 Dunlins
  • 25 Black turnstones
  • 12 Harlequin ducks
  • 7 Bald eagles
  • 290 Thayer’s gulls

Deceased Sea Lion + Chilly Nights

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Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 15 NM
  • Sky partially overcast
  • Wind 5-10 knots NE
  • Water mostly calm

Visitors and traffic: 

  • Not much traffic with the strong winds this week and last (55 knots!) only a handful of whale watching boats when conditions allow

Notes: 

  • Just above the intertidal east of the jetty we found the carcass of a deceased male Stellar sea lion. It’s the early stages of decomposition and we think it died at least 4 days ago since we accidentally captured it in the background of one of our photos. We are not sure how it died and it has no obvious injuries. We are hopeful that we might be able to learn more! We’re not sure if it died here or was washed ashore by the strong swells last weekend.
  • Last week we forgot to mention that we were joined by a sweet young elephant seal who had hidden among the sea lions near the jetty. It was not tagged so unfortunately we don’t have any more information and it was gone by the next day.
  • There have been an incredible number of eagles in the reserve eating both fish and seagulls. It’s amazing to watch them hunt and even more incredible to watch them carefully pluck a bird before digging in (albeit a bit gory).
  • We have still been seeing whales every day, primarily humpbacks but we have also been thrilled to see the occasional pod of orcas passing by. Today we spotted one young whale tail slapping continuously for about 5 minutes before moving along past Pedder Bay. It’s comforting to see the whales exhibiting their regular feeding patterns now that there are fewer vessels on the water. Now that we have become more tuned observers of whales, the behavioral contrast between vessels present and absent can be very stark.

Census: 

  • 195 Stellar sea lions
  • 330 California sea lions
  • 1 Ruddy turnstones
  • 22 Black turnstones
  • 2 Sanderlings
  • 17 Harbour seals
  • 6 Bald eagles
  • About 600 Pelagic cormorants and Brandt’s cormorants
  • About 300 California gulls

Whales, Harlequin Ducks, and Eagles!

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Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 1-5 NM
  • Sky overcast, moderate fog cover
  • Wind 10-25 knots W
  • Waves up to 0.5m

Visitors and traffic: 

  • On Sunday we had a burst of whale watching activity, some around North Rock but primarily south of the reserve near the Rosedale Reef marker.
  • We have had some supplies (water, etc.) delivered over the last couple of days.

Ecological/Weather Notes: 

  • We woke up in a fog bank on Monday and the fog has stuck around, although with periods of clarity. It sounds like Vancouver Island is going to continue getting wet weather over this week.
  • As mentioned above, on Monday there were 2 minke whales (?) in the general area of North Rock and some time later 2 or 3 humpbacks south of us. A good handful of of whale watching/eco tourism vessels came by to get close to the action.
  • Over the last couple of days we’ve been seeing whales daily, usually out about a kilometre in the strait but once or twice they’ve come in closer to Rosedale Rock.
  • Mara spotted some brightly coloured Harlequin sea ducks in the water just off the shore south-east of us.
  • This afternoon two large bald eagles visited. Going off of the stray seagull leg and patch of feathers near the house, they were resting after a snack.
  • As the census shows below the sea lion numbers reflect the colder weather moving in and them moving out!
  • Yesterday on the jetty, we spotted a pile of what we think are regurgitated squid quills and eyeballs.
  • Garry Fletcher kindly gave us a tip about the ‘mystery berries’ from the last log post. He suspects them to be from a Strawberry Tree (Arbutus Unedo) and was even able to share pictures of a tree and its fruit. Thank you, Garry!

Census:

412 California Gulls

68 Glaucus Gulls

9 Stellar Sea Lions

76 California Sea Lions

65 Cormorants

14 Black Oyster Catchers

10 Harbour Seals

7 Canada Geese

15 Black Turnstones

Saturday Census

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Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 10-15 NM
  • Sky partly cloudy, some blue sky and sun
  • Wind 25-30 Knots NE
  • Sea state: swells breaking up to 4-5 ft

Census:

  • 1 Bald eagle
  • 6 Black turnstones
  • 1 Savannah sparrow
  • 3 Harlequin ducks
  • 345 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 800 California seagulls (approximate)
  • 65 Harbour seals
  • 13 Canada geese
  • 1117 California sea lions
  • 234 Stellar sea lions
  • 1 Sea otter (Ollie!)

Sunday Census

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Weather Today: 

  • Sky overcast with rain earlier in the afternoon
  • Visibility 10nm
  • 25-30 knots NW
  • Swells up to 0.75 m, 1 foot chop

Visitors: Over the weekend we had roughly 5 ecotour vessels per day with a couple of pleasure craft daily. Today, a private vessel spent the late afternoon in the reserve supporting divers in the water near the jetty.

Ecological: 

  • Yesterday we were surprised by a humpback whale just off of the NE side of the rock. We spotted the whale, as well as two ecotour vessels just on the edge of the reserve, shortly after heading outside. It was huge!

Humpback Whale

  • Erica/GE103 seems to have moved along, we haven’t seen her in a few days now.
  • More sea lions seem to be hauling out, or maybe it’s just that they’re getting more comfortable! They’ve been very persistent about coming up onto the middle of the island but we’ve been able to keep them away from the burial cairns. It seems as though they are unable to read the no trespassing signs…

Census: 

  • 192 cormorants
  • 96 harbour seals
  • 1 humpback whale
  • 1 bald eagle
  • 950 california gulls
  • 75 glaucus gulls
  • 229 stellar sea lions
  • 1116 california sea lions
  • 3 canada geese
  • 26 turnstones
  • 1 sea otter

Storms on the Way

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Weather Today: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, intermittent rain
  • Visibility
  • 20-35 knots W- SW throughout the day
  • Sea state: Swells up to 1.5 m, 1-2 foot chop

Visitors: Few boats through the reserve today as the seas have been a bit rough. A few eco-tourism boats in late afternoon watching a humpback whale just outside of the reserve.

Ecological: 

  • Not many unusual bird sightings this week as it has been incredibly windy. Quite a few more cormorants this week!
  • Erica, or GE103 has been enjoying napping around race rocks still this week. Her favorite spot is the jetty, although if there are too many sea lions she will venture higher onto the middle part of the island for some proper rest.

Census: 

  • 69 Harbour seals
  • 23 Glaucous-winged gulls
  • 163 California gulls
  • 43 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 263 Stellar sea lions
  • 695 California sea lions
  • 2 Bald eagles
  • 1 Elephant seall
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 1 Humpback whale (just outside of the reserve)
  • 10 Black turnstones
  • 5 Savannah sparrows

Saturday Census, Storm Brewing

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Weather Today: 

  • Sky intermittently foggy, clear (dark clouds blowing in from W)
  • Visibility 10-15 NM
  • Wind 25-35 Knots NW
  • Sea state: white caps, 2-3 foot chop

No visitors today. A few eco-tourism boats , 1 pleasure craft, and a large group of kayakers in the mid afternoon passed through the reserve.

Yesterday we glanced a humpback whale outside the reserve in the early morning. We have seen far fewer whales inside of the reserve as compared to last year’s fall (none!).

Census: 

  • 1 Elephant seal (GE103)
  • 16 Canada geese
  • 127 Glaucous-winged gulls
  • 633 California gulls
  • 3 Savannah sparrows
  • 2 Black turnstones
  • 1 Black oystercatcher (spotted amongst a group of gulls!)
  • 49 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 19 Harbour seals
  • 511 California sea lions
  • 128 Stellar Sea lions