Birds
Mammals
Birds
Mammals
8 students, 2 elephant seals & over 1200 sea lions for 1 week
The Ecological Reserve hosted instructor Laura Verhegge and 8 IB students from Pearson College for 5 days of learning, exploring, and fun!
Ecoguardian Derek also included some naturalist-level sharing of information about Race Rocks, pinnipeds, bull kelp, and even great views of humpback whales and Southern Resident Killer Whales (Orca)!
And the students did the Wildlife Census
BONUS! 2- Spectacular Rainbows!
Up before sunrise and already feeling a good flow to my morning routine. Of course coffee! Light up the woodstove and head out to start the generator. Today I skipped the Desalinater as our cistern (where we store our water to run through the Desalinater) needs a top up. The rain scheduled for today and tonight with add a little and then when Greg is out we plan to get the pump in the ocean to refill.
Today is Animal Census Day! The Lighthouse is the perfect perch to count the wildlife among the southern rocks and spot the Sea lions that are difficult around the edges of Great Race Rocks.
After this mornings routine I grabbed my journal, clicker and headed out to start counting the animals at sunrise accompanied by low tide.
Low tide is a great time to count the seals lounging on the surrounding rocks.
Harbor Seals lounging at Low tide on the South Islands
Through out the day I spent wandering the out skirts of Great Race Rocks and up the lighthouse a few times.
Black Turnstones seemed the most active today out of the others I’ve been here, as well as the fox sparrows.
Black Turnstone
Fox Sparrow
Seemed like a slow day for the cormorants compared to others, however, my first Humpback Whale while here, made up for that!
Humpback Whale passing through on the South West.
Humpback Whale Diving 4-6 minutes
Animal Census:
1- Humpback Whale
1- Bald Eagle
1- Sanderling
1- Sea Otter
1- Western Sandpiper
3- Black Oystercatchers
9- Canada Geese
10- Fox Sparrow
15- Black Turnstone
18- Cormorants
194- Harbor Seals
199- Stellar Sealion
679- Glaucous-winged Gull – 2- injured unable to fly (1 passed morning of 20th)
882- California Sealion
Bonus:
2- SPECTACULAR Rainbows!
Bald Eagle out on North Rocks
Black Oystercatcher
Steamy California Sealions after a rain storm
Stellar Sealion male yawning
Facility Work:
Topped up water in Batteries
Animal Census
Weather:
Overcast on and off
Rain storms in the afternoon
Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?
Environment Canada forecast:
Hello! Happy Friday:)
This week I took on the task of counting all the animals on the reserve,
Armed with a clicker, binoculars and my camera I got to work:
I counted:
23 California Sea lions
115 Stellar sea lions
133 Harbour seals
4 Orcas (Transients)
1 Humpback Whale
7 Oystercatchers
2 Cormorants
6 Pigeon Guillemots
20 Black Turnstones
3 Ruddy Turnstones
1 Short Billed Dowitcher (I believe)
That day I felt that there were fewer common birds in the area than usual, except for the seagulls! They were everywhere!
I counted 3885 seagulls
This, to me, seemed like an absurd number. I recounted the pictures multiple times as I was convinced I had made a mistake, but would be proven wrong (Although I am not dismissing the very big possibility of my human error)
Here are some pictures of the waters surrounding the main island
(Feel free to expand the pictures to appreciate the sheer volume of white specs that are on the images)
Here are a couple pictures of the Short Billed Dowitcher (Thanks Halle), I had not yet had the chance to see this bird, it was hanging around the Turnstones for the better part of the afternoon.
I was also very lucky with Orca seeing, yet again, the pod of transient orcas around the island.
I was also lucky enough to see a humpback surface a couple of times, but it was too far away for me to capture it.
Weather events:
It has been quite uneventful, the intense westerlies have subsided for the most part and I am getting a break in the clouds mostly in the afternoons.
I did see more cirrus clouds on Tuesday that were very similar to the ones we had previously seen in height, texture and size. Those also brought me a few minutes of sprinkling the next day.
Facility work:
Washing solar panels (Daily)
Washing windows (as needed)
Sweeping second residence
Maintenance/Repairs on power washer
Water levels in the battery
Optimizing electric fence (Jetty)
Fog rolled in on Monday night, activating the signal from the beacon. It’s a piercing set of three tones every minute, and a sound that I am very familiar with from hearing it often while at Rocky Point. I had been warned to bring earplugs, which I did, but I didn’t need them.
Fog roll
I was actually welcoming the fog for several reasons. Recent Eco-guardian Joan Rosenberg shared a tip about cleaning the solar panels when they were still wet with fog. Great idea! That made things go much quicker. There were also some things I really needed to get to on the computer, but when the weather is good, I want to be out looking around. The panels got cleaned, but the fog cleared fairly early, so things that should be done are still waiting.
The fog clearing definitely made my planned census today possible. Here is my report:
Census
Mammals
Humpback Whale: 1
Elephant Seal: 1 male
Returning from his daily swim.
Harbour Seal: 191 including several pups
Steller’s Sea Lion: 27
Steller’s and California Sea Lions
California Sea Lion 23
California Sea Lions
Birds
Black Oystercatcher: 8
Killdeer: 2
Black Turnstone: 21
Surfbird: 1
Rhinoceros Auklet: 5
Common Murre: 1
Heermann’s Gull: 1
California Gull: 700 (mostly early morning, although some lingered through the day)
Glaucous winged Gull: 655 (by clicker–highest count for me so far)
Pelagic Cormorant: 5
Double-crested Cormorant: 4
Bald Eagle: 1
Song Sparrow: 1
Brown-headed Cowbird: 1
Unidentified passerine: 1 (right as the sun set, the bird flew in east of the lighthouse, but I couldn’t relocate it. I’ll be checking the area in the morning!
Facility Work: Solar panels and windows cleaned. Greg came by with a load of diesel. Arriving California Sea Lions prompted check and minor fixes to the fencing. We also topped up all of the batteries with distilled water.
Battery bank. 24 needing juice!
Vessel Traffic: Ecotourism was big today with as many as five vessels in the reserve at once. Estimate more than 20 came through today. No private vessels noted.
Another beautiful sunset!
Sunset
Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?
Weather: west wind 15 knots, fog cleared by 8 a.m. visibility good
Tide .8 m at 12 noon
Elephant Seal 1 male, 1 female
Orcas 4
Seals 68 (13 pups?) on south and south seal rocks
Sea Lions both Stellar and California 60 on middle and west rocks
Gulls
While I was counting these gulls there were 2 “feeding flocks” just off the island with about 1000 gulls so there may have been fewer gulls on the islands than usual
660 on rocks below generator shed western and glaucous winged gulllls
110 on island “nesting” mostly glaucous winged gulls but several western/hybrid gullls nesting as well
estimate of between 80 and 150 chicks
Cormorants 14
Pigeon Guillemots 56
Surfbirds 8
Black turnstones 58
Black Oystercatcher 18? they are hard to count as they move around so much 1 new chick!
Bald Eagle 1
Western sand piper 4
can you identify this bird? red knot ?
I wonder, does the fog horn go all night?
Wind westerly
At sunrise (530 am) between 30 and 35 knots, dropped to 20 knots midday for about an hour and then quickly came back up at 1800 hours between 35 and 40
clear most of the day but fog rolling in now
water whitecaps huge swells
Boats
About 6 whale watching boats, all respectful of speed and distance from marine mammals (sea lions on middle rocks)
Facility
Could not work outside today cleaning windows or solar panels due to wind but did manage to clean camera 5 as requested
Wildlife
.3m tide at 10:38 this morning. Great place to get away from the nesting birds. I wanted to see if there was damage from the very hot weather 3 weeks ago. Marine life on many coastal areas of BC suffered greatly. The California mussels and most barnacles looked healthy. I think the tidepools suffered the most but hard to tell as I have nothing to compare. in many tidepools the Coralina algae had gone white and there were many dead chitons. Below are some invertebrate pictures, gumboot chitons, Katerina chiton, lined chiton, abalone!, nudibranchs…
I had time to practice counting birds from the lighthouse lamp room. The middle island at midtide had about 500 gulls. Below the light on the east side of Race rocks there were about 50 Turnstones and Surfbirds. They are well camouflaged. Cormorants (pelagic?) numbered about 12 on the north west. Pigeon guillemots are numerous and 2 groups perching on the rocks above me while I walked numbered 34. Oyster catchers I did not count. Below is a picture of the nest by the boat ramp.
Many of the gull chicks are practicing flying. Jump jump jumping while spreading their wings. I saw a couple get good lift.
