Category Archives: Animal census

Diversity of Bird Life

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‘The diversity of bird life has increased greatly with the improving weather this week. Rock sandpipers, Western sandpipers, Red Knots, and Greater Yellowlegs have all been seen in the intertidal zone. Yesterday evening a juvenile brown pelican spent a number of hours on Great Race before heading towards Port Angeles just after sunset. Today around noon a peregrine falcon zipped by Great Race and scared most of the small bird species away for the day. The Black Oystercatchers are becoming very territorial with one another, and the nest above the cove on the E side of Great Race now has 2 eggs.’, ‘Ryan’, ’17:42:48 ,

Mammal census:

‘Elephant Seal’, 8, ‘8 females remain on Middle Rocks, still in various stages of their moults. The tagged female X201/X202 recently left Great Race Island after completing her moult, but was photographed yesterday on Middle Rocks with the other females. This year is a pattern reversal compared to last year when it was the sub-adult male -Misery) who completed his moult on Great Race and few if any female elephant seals were seen here during this time.’, ‘Ryan’, ’17:45:02 ,

Harlequin Ducks abundant

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rmharlequingroupSee Ryan Murphy’s harlequin images on Flickr
“’tis the season for Harlequin ducks here at Race Rocks. The particularly fine weather has emboldened the main group that spends most of its time on the east side of Great Race Island and they have been spending time around the jetty and on the west side of the island as well. Group size ranges from a single pair to more than twenty, with thirty or more individuals in the reserve the past couple of days.” Ryan Murphy-Ecoguardian Race Rocks.

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“Harlequin Up/Down

Not sure when I’ll capture a moment like this again. Usually Harlequin ducks dive together or in close succession, but here one bird is popping to the surface as another one begins its dive.” Ryan Murphy

Ryan also took this photo today for a Northern sealion census: click several times for a very large image where individuals can be examined.rmdec1120094183669401_3549217f41_o

November Gulls

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Ryan Murphy took this shot from the top of the tower. Race Rocks is an important winter roosting place for several species of gull. He did this image in high resolution so that it can be magnified considerably: This is the distribution of them on the south-west corner of Great Race Rocks, the main island of the Ecological Reserve. The Science house, (originally the assistant light-keeper residence) is shown on the right.

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Gulls at Race Rocks , November 11, 2009–photo by Ryan Murphy, Ecoguardian.

 

Sea Lion Census

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A visual census using  the remote camera 5 focused on Middle Island.

The following panorama was taken of the “middle islands” at Race Rocks from 6 images taken consecutively with a small overlap and then spliced together with a “Photostitch” program which is usually available with the software for an electronic camera.

Educational Application: When we build up a set of these pictures, students can do mathematical projects by going on the camera and getting a live count and then running various statistical comparisons on these archived images. Just click on the image below for a version that is large enough to enable counting and identification.

Click for larger size to count sealions.

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Census birds and mammals

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Dec 25, 2003:  Pinniped census in the reserve: (Animals hauled out) —North Rock :0 Middle Rocks : Northern Sealions:65, California Sealions:1 —–Great Race Rocks : Northern Sealions: 8, California Sealions: 4 Harbour seals:7, Elephant seal :1(Male) West Race Rocks California Sealiion: 1 ( About one third of the animals observed were very young ) . Weather conditions: Wind West 32 , Sea 3′- Heavy Swell. Other noteworthy sightings : We estimated approximately 2500-3000 Herring Gulls on the island today.

Marine mammal census in April

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 April 3, 2003: Did a boat trip around West Race and the Middle rocks and counted 11 Elephant Seals hauled out.There were 3 fairly large males and the rest assorted smaller males and females.The one big fellow that has been hauled out near the boat house for the last few weeks was floating about just off the south tip of the middle rock.There were 5 Northern and 14 California Sea Lions also hauled out with the Elephant seals

April 6, 2003: There were 13 Elephant Seals,12 hauled out on Middle Rock and the one large male floating about close to the shore this afternoon.The Elephant Seals have been joined by about 20 California and 9 Northern Sea Lions

April 14, 2003: There were about 35 California and 9 Northern Sea Lions hauled out on Middle rock with the Elephant Seals.

Students end project week

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Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 9.1 ºC »» Min. 7.3 ºC »» Reset 8.5 ºC »» Rain 1.9 mm
MARINE LIFE:Still seeing fish balls but they are small and not as frequent as in the past weeks. Daily visitors are the usual gulls, Starlings,Crows,Black Turnstones, Surf Birds, Cormorants,Sparrows, Harlequin Ducks,a group of about 30 Black Oyster Catchers and the geese-usually 6 but every couple of days the 7th joins the group for at least part of the day. The Sealion population is still fairly low for this time of year as many of them have left the area since the last series of blasting on Bentinck Island.
HUMAN INTERACTION: Chris in with 2nd Nature to return Rosie, Ahmad and Jeremias to Campus. Garry out in 2nd Nature with guests also 4 Ecotour boats and 2 pleasurecraft through today.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:19 PM
Good morning
WEATHER: Sky Overcast »» Vis. 10 Miles »» Wind North 11 Knots »» Sea Choppy
Goodbye RR, thanks for our marvellous project week.posted by Race Rocks Relief at 7:48 AM
Good Evening
Temperature: Max. 9.1 ºC »» Min. 7.1 ºC »» Reset 8.0 ºC
Rainfall: 9.0mm

Our last evening on the island has arrived, we’ll spend it editing
the rest of our projects.
posted by Race Rocks Relief at 7:47 AM