Category Archives: Animal census

Census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 NE
  • Sky: cloudy throughout the day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw a couple ecotours cruise by

Ecological

  • still more sea lions than I expected to still be here, no elephant seal either.

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 343
  • California Sea Lions, 152
  • Harbour Seals – 13
  • Gulls – 317
  • Cormorants – 119
  • Harlequinn Ducks – 18
  • Black Turnstones – 24
  • Eagle – 1

The Sea Lions are Leaving

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  15-30 NE throughout the day
  • Sky: cloudy all day bit of sunshine came through in the afternoon
  • Water: choppy today

Boats/Visitors

  • Some ecotours skipping across the waves today

Ecological

  • less sea lions today than last week

Notes

  • DnD was blasting again today

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 105
  • California Sea Lions – 286
  • Elephant Seals – 2
  • Cormorants- 634
  • Gulls – 308
  • Geese – 14
  • Oyster Catchers 8
  • Black Turnstones – 8
  • Eagles – 2

Census October 26th

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-15 SE
  • Sky: clear most of the day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had plenty of ecotours cruising by

Ecological

  • Not as many sea lions today, they might have peaked by now but last year they didn’t start leaving until mid november
  • there were a couple injured sea lions plus a dead one
  • only saw one elephant seal today but I’m sure the others are around
  • So many stellars, mostly on the outer rocks
  • there was also an eagle
  • haven’t seen the otter or any oyster catchers
  • also saw a few humpbacks out there (not included in census)

Notes

  • plenty of solar input today

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 235
  • California Sea Lions – 421
  • Harbour Seals – 18
  • Elephant Seals – 1(seen) I’m sure there are at least 3 or 4 more around
  • Gulls (unspecified) – 456
  • Cormorants – 713
  • Black Turnstones – 22
  • Geese – 8
  • Eagle – 1

Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: calm, sort of, there was a bit of a swell out there

Boats/Visitors

  • Kyle dropped off a food order and helped with some facility work other than that there were the usual ecotours

Ecological

  • More sea lions than last week
  • Same 5 elephant seals
  • a lot of birds, gulls, turnstones, oystercatchers, geese, cormorants and an eagle
  • Still not sure if the sea otter is out there, he is very hard to see from here

Notes

  • DnD was blasting today
  • The new generator is working great, just need more fuel

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 512
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 141
  • Unspecified Gulls – 620
  • Cormorants – 228
  • Black Turnstones – 26
  • Oystercatchers – 22
  • Geese – 16
  • Eagle – 1
  • Harbour Seals – 30
  • Elephant Seals – 5

Census day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  0-10 W
  • Sky: cloudy throughout the day and a but of a drizzle this morning
  • Water: calm, but the current was running pretty good

Boats/Visitors

  • The new generator was set up today so we had a few people to come in and set that up which is great

Ecological

  • even more sea lions this time, of both stellars and californias
  • also 2 more elephant seal showed up this morning, both female

Notes

  • tried to set up the electric fence again by the generator room but the sea lions tear back it down in minutes
  • Saw the sea lions today that was darted a couple weeks ago and he is still healing (pictures in gallery)
  • And the sea lion that currently has a band around its neck is still around
  • There was a stellar that I thought might have something around his neck but it was just a gash, possibly from other sea lion?

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 62
  • California Sea Lions – 456
  • Elephant Seals – 5 (all female)
  • Harbour Seals – 128
  • Gulls (unspecified) – 524
  • Cormorants – 367
  • Black turnstones – 32
  • Sparrows – 43
  • Oyster Catchers – 6
  • Sea Otter ( I can’t sea it very well but I’m sure it was around ) – 1

Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  10-20 NE
  • Sky: clear all day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had some visitors come by from Eagle Wing Tours

Ecological

  • The 3 female elephant seals are still here
  • Spotted some California Gulls today too

Notes

  • There was another sea lion with a band stuck around his neck, will alert DFO so they can come out here and help out the sea lion, the last pictures are of this sea lion
  • It was pointed out to me that I have not been including the sea otter in my census, I admit I have a hard time spotting him from here so I often forget about him

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 42
  • california sea lions – 286
  • gulls – 324
  • oyster catchers – 8
  • black turnstones – 18
  • sparrows – 32
  • harbour seals – 87
  • sea otter – 1

Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles throughout the day
  • Wind:  0-10 NW throughout the day
  • Sky: clear all day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Mostly just whale watchers and other boats cruising by on this beautiful sunny day

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around but not as many as I thought there would be

Notes

  • DnD was blasting again today
  • I finally have a full fresh water tank so hopefully it rains soon so I can start pressure washing and cleaning the pathways and buildings off
  • Significantly less sea lions I expected I suspect many of them went for swim while I was doing the census because it was a rather hot day today but here are the numbers are I have right now

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 68
  • California Sea Lions – 97
  • Harbour Seals – 72
  • Gulls – 153
  • Cormorants – 73
  • Black Turnstones – 21
  • Sparrows – 24ish, hard to see and fast to fly off

I am Back and the Census

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Sorry about my last 10 days being absent but I am back now and here is an updated census.

Weather

  • Visibility: Pretty clear 15 Miles throughout today
  • Wind:  0-5 SW with small range all day
  • Sky: Sunny all day
  • Water: pretty flat but the current is very visible and moving

Boats/Visitors

  • I came in today and so did a few students to have a look around, we also had an engineer to come look at the new generator

Ecological

  • quite a bit of sea lions, I don’t see the elephant seal sticking around anymore and I have not seen any oyster catchers today. Also the sea otter in the north kelp patch is back

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 142
  • California Sea Lions: 186
  • Elephant Seals: 0
  • Harbour Seals: 28
  • Unspecified Gulls: 153
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 0
  • Cormorants: 18
  • Canada Geese: 12
  • Oystercatchers: 0
  • Black Turnstones: 48

 

Census Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: Started off at 10 miles but closed in to the point the fog horn was going off for a good part of the morning and then a sunny break this afternoon and back to pretty cloudy now
  • Wind:  10-15 W this morning picked up to above 30, same direction
  • Sky: pretty cloudy with a little break in the afternoon
  • Water: pretty flat but the current is very visible and moving

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours today

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions, not really seeing elephant seals, also there was about 26 of these birds I will post a picture of but I wasn’t what bird it was, will look into it.

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 176
  • California Sea Lions: 153
  • Elephant Seals: 0
  • Harbour Seals: 24
  • Unspecified Gulls: 212
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 0
  • Cormorants: 18
  • Canada Geese: 8
  • Oystercatchers: 8
  • Harlequinn Ducks: 0
  • Crows: 0
  • Unspecified bird: 26

Notes

  • Have not spotted the river otters again
  • Sea lions refused to budge when I went to get the water sample, I gave up and found a way around the one that would not move
  • They somehow dragged a ladder down the jetty so I had a tough time retrieving that because the ladder was attached to a rope that got wrapped around a rock, I managed to bring it up behind the boat shed, also the boat shed door looks to be in pretty rough shape the sea lions are always piled up against it

Census August 31st

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The island has began a shift in population recently, with the adolescent gulls beginning to take flight and hunting on their own the population itself seems to be thinning out. We have some new visitors out this way with some canadian geese calling race rocks there home or maybe just a short term vacation spot. Lately the #’s of sea lions have been increasing steadily in the previous week, with the lions taking advantage of the grassy sections farther inland from the rocky coast.

Stellar Sea Lions – 175

Californian Sea Lions- 73

Elephant Seals- 3

200 Gulls

50 Adolescent gulls

30 Canadian Geese

20 Oyster Catchers