Category Archives: Animal census

A Quiet Week

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Weather: 

  • 15 miles visibility
  • Skies clear with some clouds
  • 40+ kn wind
  • Rolling waves up to 1/2 m breaking into whitecaps

Boats/Visitors: 

The boats at Pearson are in for annual maintenance so we have not had any college visitors. The wind conditions have limited all boat traffic.

Ecological:

There are have been no sea lions over the past few days. The gosling that appeared to be injured has not been spotted in a while. The large male elephant seals are clearly moulting now and have been fighting over the best sleeping spots. The seagulls have become more aggressive and will now fly towards us even if we keep a distance from their eggs.

There has been DND blasting nearby almost every day lately. The birds take flight and the mammals are visibly disturbed.

Census: 

  • 30 harbour seals
  • 5 elephant seals, all moulting. 4 male 1 female
  • Roughly 200 seagulls
  • Two families of geese, minus one missing gosling
  • Two barn swallows nesting in our rafters

An Injured Gosling

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Weather: 

  • Clear Skies
  • 15mi visibility
  • 10kn NE wind
  • Calm water

Boats/Visitors: 

There have been lots of whale watching boats over the last few days, most coming within 25m of greater Race Rocks. Greg has came from the college a few times to resupply diesel (today) and water (yesterday).

Ecological:

There are three large elephant seals here, and today they were all resting in the water at the end of the boat ramp. One of the goslings from the younger family of geese appears to have injured its food or leg. It has separated from the rest of them over the last few days, and can be seen limping and moving slowly, it is unable to keep up with the rest.

The DND has been blasting, it is very loud and sometimes occurs four to five times in a day. It startles all of the animals, and the birds take flight.

We have noticed some barn swallows flying around out front window. On closer inspection, they appear to be nesting under our eves where a soffit panel has blown out of place.

Maintenance:

We have replaced the hinges on both doors of the water tank shed, and removed old hinges fasted or corroded to the doorframe. Opening and closing the doors is easy now, and with a touch of anti-seize paste on the hinge pins it should stay that way.

We cleaned the solar panels for the first time in a while. The desalinator being out of commission means pressure washing is too resource intensive – we found an old hand pump sprayer, and found it to be very helpful for cleaning while conserving water.

Census:

  • 5 elephant seals
  • 12 geese
  • 2 seal lions
  • 190 seagulls
  • 8 oystercatchers
  • 2 barn swallows

Whales! (and census)

Gallery

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This gallery contains 4 photos.

Weather:  Visibility: Very clear, 15 miles Wind: 15-25 knots Sky: Mostly clear, some clouds Water: Choppy, white caps Boats/Visitors:  Today a contractor visited to fix our internet/ phone cable in the main residence. At the same time Corey, two BC … Continue reading →

New Eco-Guardians, Many Visitors, and Catastrophic Moults

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We’re Mara and Kai, the new Eco-Guardians. We’re very excited to be on Race Rocks. It’s been a busy few days (we arrived Monday), but lots has been done so far. Now that we are settling in, we’ll be sure to log post more frequently and with pictures!

Weather:

Visibility: 20 miles

Wind: 30 knots S

Sky: Overcast

Water: Waves up to half a metre, whitecaps

Boats/Visitors:

Over the last few days there has been traffic: visitors including people working on costal radar, the weather station, seismic monitoring, and guests of Pearson College. The costal radar antenna had to be shipped back to its manufacturer to be recalibrate, and is now working as intended.

Some whale watching boats have been getting close, well inside of 100m of the animals. They usually make more distance if they can see us. Lots of traffic today specifically, well over twenty visits by whale watching.

Maintenance:

The desalinator is still broken so we are conserving water, and our drinking water is being brought from Pearson College. Earlier this week they brought a fire hose to pump clean water into the tank when we get low. A new four wheeled cart was brought to facilitate safer diesel fuel transfers between the shed by the jetty and the generator room.

Ecological:

One elephant seal has been on land near the boat ramp for days now. It seems to be undergoing catastrophic moulting, a process in which they shed all of their fur as well as the underlaying skin. They appear to be sick, but we’ve been assured it’s normal.

Yesterday’s Census:

9 elephant seals: youngest one is still here on our lawn, two moulting

About 30 sea lions

2 families of geese with 6 goslings per

5 additional pairs of geese (one laid eggs today that we had to collect and addle)

About 200 seagulls- they are starting to build nests and are becoming more aggressive

About 20 pigeon guillemots

A handful of oyster catchers

Busy weekend

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Was quite busy this weekend but things have calmed down a bit now

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SE
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • The couple who will be taking the summer shift came by today for a little orientation, ran them through some of the chores we do here and will get more training time when we switch mid May
  • beautiful out the last couple days since the wind calmed down, there has been plenty of boats around

Maintenance

  • The solar panels really need to be scrubbed, I will try get that done tomorrow morning before the sun comes up, they are very difficult to clean when the sun is beating down on them

Ecological

  • 14 elephant seals, the pup is still here
  • very few sea lions, around 100 of them, seems to be an even mix of stellar and californias
  • about 12 geese around and 7 goslings so far
  • a couple hundred pigeon guillemots around today
  • about 6 oystercatchers, they will probably start nesting soon
  • a little group of harlequins around along with about 200 gulls that are starting to build their nests as well
  • there is at least 50 harbour seals on the outer rocks  and that’s about it for a rough census

Pup adoption and census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Small waves

Boats/Visitors

  • No visitors today, have been hearing the coast guard cruise by at night and do flare training

Maintenance

  • The desal was finally running last night although it was a slow process I got some fresh water out of it

Ecological

  • The male pups mother left the other night, it was nice to see the pups interacting yesterday but today they are more separated because the male pup has started nursing off the mother who lost her pup
  • One of the elephant seals managed to totally knock down the little green shed by the generator room, which is too heavy for me to put back together alone
  • definitely less sea lions now, but there is a lot of cormorants

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 114
  • Steller Sea Lions – 42
  • Harbour Seal – 21
  • Elephant Seal – 3 male, 1 female plus 2 pups, 1 female, 1 male
  • Cormorants – 528
  • Gulls – 130
  • Black Turnstones – 34
  • Eagle – 16
  • Oyster Catchers – 8
  • Harlequin Ducks – 10
  • Geese – 21

48 eagles

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Calm for the most part

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours going by today, some divers went by yesterday

Maintenance

  • Plan on stacking firewood today, and top up the water tank, I’m hoping to start pressure washing soon

Ecological

  • The third pup, is covered in bite marks and I really don’t know how long it’ll last but at the moment its still alive but one of the other mothers keeps attacking it
  • Chunk is here but hasn’t really come up past the jetty, which is good I think he is scared of Bernard

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 232
  • Steller Sea Lions – 106
  • Harbour Seal – 21
  • Elephant Seal – 2 male, 3 female plus 3 pups, 1 female, 1 male, and the third gender is undetermined
  • Cormorants – 417
  • Gulls – 507
  • Black Turnstones – 44
  • Eagle – 48
  • Oyster Catchers – 28
  • Harlequin Ducks – 8
  • Ravens – 2

Census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Calm for the most part

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours going by today

Maintenance

  • Let the batteries too low today, lost power around 16:00 and started the generator

Ecological

  • I’m getting concerned about the other female, they usually give birth within a few days of hauling out but she hasn’t which leads me to believe either she isn’t pregnant even though she really looks like it or maybe something wrong, I’m not sure
  • the pup is doing well though, getting a bit bigger every day, the beta males have stayed away and the alpha always stays close by

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 112
  • Steller Sea Lions – 124
  • Harbour Seal – 59
  • Elephant Seal – 3 male, 4 female plus 1 pup who I suspect is female
  • Cormorants – 32
  • Gulls – 89
  • Canada Geese – 18
  • Black Turnstones – 38
  • Eagle – 2
  • Oyster Catchers – 4
  • Harlequin Ducks – 12

Sooke Christmas Bird Count

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Weather:  Continued west wind up to 30 knots in the morning and some lingering swell, sunshine for a change.

Ecological:

Guy brought Kim and Jim out in the morning for the annual “Sooke Christmas Bird Count”.  They surveyed the island and surrounding waters from the top of the tower and walked around the island. Guy took them around the reserve in the boat on the way back to get a better view of the pelagic zone.  Apparently the Snow Bunting they saw here was one of the highlights of the Sooke count this year.

12 Canada Goose
10 Harlequin Duck
4 Surf Scoter
3 White-winged Scoter
2 Red-breasted Merganser
24 Black Oystercatcher
38 Black Turnstone
3500 Common Murre
90 Ancient Murrelet
4 Rhinoceros Auklet
800 Mew Gull
150 Iceland Gull (Thayer’s)
250 Glaucous-winged Gull
1 Western x Glaucous-winged Gull (hybrid) — 95% Western
1 Red-throated Loon
40 Pacific Loon
1 Common Loon
50 Brandt’s Cormorant
75 Pelagic Cormorant
20 Double-crested Cormorant
10 Bald Eagle
2 Common Raven
1 Snow Bunting — Photos taken
1 Song Sparrow

Number of Taxa: 24

See this index of past years Bird Counts. https://www.racerocks.ca/race-rocks-animals-plants/bird-observations-at-race-rocks-3/christmas-bird-counts-starting-in-1997/

-4 tankers passed by today: The STI Battery, and oil/chemical tanker on its way to Quintero, Chile; The Florida, an oil/chemical tanker heading to Anacortes from Nikiski (USA); The Unique Developer, and oil products tanker coming from Topolobampo (Mex) en route to Port Angeles; and the Valrossa, from Cherry Point to Manzanillo (Mex)

Vessels:

-Second Nature

-one private/sports fishing

-3 tour boats

-1 little red zodiac going over the requested speed limit.

Maintenance:

-fixed firewood cutting jig

-sharpened chainsaw

-cut firewood

-Tidying in tank room

Last post until the new year

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I am heading out tomorrow for winter break but both Jeff and Alex will be here.

Thought I would do one last count before I head out for a couple weeks, there seemed to be more Steller Sea Lions around today

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: From 0 – 15 NW but its supposed to blow pretty hard tomorrow
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Pretty calm, can see some decently sized rollers out there

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours going by today, it was relatively calm out

Maintenance

  • Getting the house ready for the next person, trying to fill up the fresh water tank as much as I can before I go as well

Ecological

  • Decided to do another count, seems to be the same amount of Californias but a few more stellers out there today
  • Another large male elephant seal showed up, the scars on his back resemble chunk which makes wonder if the one that has been here the past couple days is Bernard or Boss, will need more photos to compare
  • There are currently 3 female elephant seals, one of them is tagged, C887
  • a few surf scoters out there today
  • Noticed a neck banded sea lion on the jetty today, will let the next person know to keep an eye on him, if he sticks around maybe we can get some help for him

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 216
  • Steller Sea Lions – 265
  • Harbour Seal – 18
  • Elephant Seal – 5 male, 3 female
  • Cormorants – 120
  • Gulls – 224
  • Canada Geese – 18
  • Black Turnstones – 28
  • Eagle – 6
  • Raven – 1
  • Oyster Catchers – 8
  • Surf Scoter – 4