Category Archives: Bird Notes

First Oystercatcher chicks, an orca and a harlequin duck

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: small white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Quite a few ecotour boats today, with a couple of private boats as well
  • A weirdly shaped plane flew over this morning

Birds

  • I spotted two Oystercatcher chicks near the crane as I was standing on the jetty. I grabbed a photo from far but they were gone by the time I got close. I have walked around the entire shore and haven’t seen any other chicks yet – looks like we had some literal early birds.
  • Saw a harlequin duck near the east shore of the island. Photographed below.

Marine mammals

  • Caught a lone orca swimming past Pedder Bay, but by the time I went to get a photograph it was gone.

Person in row boat

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Weather

  • Visibility: 14 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • An average number of ecotour boats
  • There was a man who arrived close to the reserve in a row boat. Upon talking to him I learned that he rowed here all the way from Port Angeles and was headed to Victoria, but the tide pushed him to Race Rocks instead. After rowing around the reserve for a few minutes, he headed on to Victoria.

Bird Notes

  • Noticed a sudden rise in number of immature gulls. Photographs below.

Marine Mammals

  • The latest elephant seal count is at 5 males and 1 female.
  • There are two California Sea Lion young ones around the jetty, with an adult (presumably the mother).

A whole flock of Pelicans!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Not too many ecotour boats around today.
  • Spotted the HMCS Calgary leaving Pedder Bay and heading out towards the open ocean

Technical

  • Yesterday Kyle and Guy visited the island to go over all the energy and support systems. They identified some issues with the desalination pump, and the solar panel grid. There will be a technician coming soon to fix those.

Bird Notes

  • I saw a whole flock of Pelicans fly over the island – about 15-20 in number.

Chimney Cleaning and Aggressive Seagulls

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-20 knts NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: 1-2 meter waves with white caps

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Not too many ecotour boats around today. A few private boats

Technical

  • Guy brought the chimney cleaner to the island today who cleared and vacuumed all the chimneys on the island.

Bird Notes

  • The Seagulls have been getting increasingly aggressive, as is expected this time of the year due to their eggs. I spotted the first dead, adult Seagull of the season that I suspect was killed by another Seagull.
  • There are notably fewer Seagulls on the island this year compared to previous years.

Marine Mammals

  • Elephant Seal counts remain the same since yesterday. 4 males and 3 females.

Pelican and new male elephant seal

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 knts NW
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Garry Fletcher (ER Warden) and the IT team from Pearson College came ashore this morning. The IT team worked on replacing some of the wiring at the top of the lighthouse while I gave Garry a brief rundown of the happenings on the island.
  • A group of 9 visitors from the Kule Foundation came for a tour later in the afternoon. They spent close to an hour exploring every part of the island, including the top of the lighthouse, as Guy and I provided information, facts and stories.
  • After a Seaking Adventures boat violated the rules of the reserve day before yesterday and went into the eastern channel, I called the company this evening to give a warning. They explained that they have a new driver who is new to the area, but assured me that there would be no more boating violations on their part.
  • HMCS Edmonton was headed towards Pedder Bay this evening, along with a tail of two hard-hulled inflatables.

Bird Notes

  • A Pelican spent a good part of the afternoon on the island, just north of the student house. I haven’t seen this Pelican here before in the last 10 days that I have been at Race Rocks.
  • More seagull eggs. None hatched yet. Seagulls are relatively less aggressive than usual for this time of the year.

Marine Mammals

  • Garry spotted a new male Elephant Seal on the island today. It’s a fairly young one with remarkably unmarked/scarred skin. We believe that’s because it may have recently finished molting.

Very windy day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-30 knts W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: White caps, 1-2 meters
  • Some light showers during the afternoon

Boats/Visitors

  • Just a couple of ecotour boats today due to the strong wind.
  • Not much private boat traffic either

Birds

  • The seagulls have gotten noticeably more aggressive but still no signs of offspring

Marine Animals

  • There were four Elephant seals on the main island today – one male and three female. The male and one female seemed to occasionally get aggressive with each other, but no harm was done to either.
  • One of the females still seems to be undergoing the molting process.
  • Elephant Seal tagged B198 is still on the island and has been in the same spot over the last few days.

Overall, quite an uneventful day.

Boating violations and power trouble

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors

  • The calm weather attracted several ecotour boats as well as many private boats
  • I witnessed several boating violations:
    • 2 marina boats were getting really close to the sea lions. I had to call the marina and report the boats.
    • A private small boat tried to enter the ramp area near the jetty. I went up to the jetty and asked them to reverse out of that area.
    • A whale watching boat almost entered the lighthouse island and the south islands, but stopped short when I went outside and made myself visible.

Technical

  • Over the last 48 hours, for some reason, the batteries were draining faster than usual and even running the generator for 2+ hours daily wasn’t enough. This morning the batteries came to a critical low of 18%. I got in touch with Guy over IM and we troubleshooted the cause to be excess power consumption from the student house. After closing a few switches and unplugging some machines, I ran the generator for 4 hours and was able to bring the batteries back up to 100%. The bright sun all day today definitely also helped juice the batteries up faster.

Ecological

  • Noticed several more seagull eggs today. None hatched so far
  • Fewer elephant seals on the shore today

Seagulls lay eggs

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-20 NW
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply/Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Few ecotour boats scattered through the day

Ecological

  • Spotted a young elephant seal (about 3-4 ft in length) near the jetty.
  • Seagulls have laid their eggs! I estimate about 30-40 eggs on the island so far, definitely growing in number. Some seagulls are still building their nest/adding more straw
  • Spotted a tagged elephant seal near the jetty. Tag number was B198. Photo below

 

Photos of the tagged Elephant seal:

Census Day!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-30 NW
  • Sky: Mostly clear
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • one or two scattered ecotour boats
  • Guy brought 3 tour groups, only one of which docked. The tides and currents were uncooperative for the other two groups. The group that came ashore spent about 30 mins visiting the student residence and lighthouse.

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 16
  • california sea lions – 8
  • elephant seals – 3 female, 1 male
  • gulls – 200
  • pigeon guillemots – 105
  • oyster catchers – 12
  • geese – 4
  • eagles – 4

 

Last Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-35 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • not much boat traffic today

Ecological

  • About 9 elephant seals still around, 2 males, 7 female
  • looks like there are more seagull eggs around
  • unfortunately the oyster catcher eggs haven’t hatched yet, I was hoping they would before I leave tomorrow for the summer

I have had an amazing time at Race Rocks, my shift is over tomorrow and Aziz will be here, I’m sure he will do a great job this summer.