10kts NE wind. Cloudy, but still no rain.
Tour boats: 5
Dive boats: 2
Marine Mammal Count
Stellar Sea lion: 272
California Sea lion: 396
Harbour seal: 78
Elephant seal: 8
Harlequin Duck: 4
Sanderling: 1
Sanderling (Calidris alba) and a Black Turnstone
Another breakfast eagle sighting this morning.
Sea lions on the North-Eastern flats of Greater Race Rock
-tidied boat shed
Cloudy, but still no rain. Light NE winds most of the day. No fog.
First day it actually felt like Fall. It didn’t get above 10C today.
Water temp 9.8C. Visibility is still pretty good, but nothing like it was last week.
Tour boats: 14
Dive boat: 1
Fly over by an air plane midday. NE to SW. Low.
The Elephant seals are still camped out on the boat ramp. The small females are always next to the juvenile male. But the larger females are less interested in him. Still no sign of Misery.
The seagull with the broken wing has taken to following me around the island.
The outer rocks/islands have almost no sea lions on them. They have all moved to the North-East flats next to the Keeper’s house and on the South side of the student house.
-Ran desalinator
-Pressure washed South side and reachable West side of keepers house
Morning fog. Moderate East wind. Sunny the rest of the day.
Tour boats: 4
It seems that, as the sea lions are leaving, more gulls and birds are moving onto Greater Race Rock. There have also been a lot of dense groups of gulls and diving birds on the water in and around the reserve.
The juvenile elephant seal with scabby molt (aka ‘Cranky Pants’) has returned to the boat ramp. Her skin has healed up a bit since she was last here a few weeks ago.
Kayakers next to South Rock-This kind of approach regularly scares birds and the seals and sea lions form the rocks.
-took the boston whaler in, traded it for a zodiac
-loaded the boat dolly onto Second Nature with Erik
-ran desalinator
-cleaned and scraped the zodiac
-tidied basement
Sunny, light NE wind. Calm seas
An eagle spent the morning on top of the derrick. We saw it fly away once out towards the West and pester the seagulls, then landed back on the derrick. It left a few minutes later, flying towards the West.
Breakfast eagle
Tour boats: 4
Off station from 1400 to 1500 hrs to pick up scaffolding
Another lovely sunset this evening. Always fun to check out the ships heading past.
Sunset panoramic from the tower
Norwegian cargo ship ‘Goya’. Bound for Balboa, running at 14 kts. AIS shiptracker is great.
-tidied crane shed
-set up slings for boat cradle
Light NE wind, sunny, calm
A single Cackling Goose arrived today. It has been hanging out with the Canada geese.
Tour boats: 7
-washed solar panels
-ran desalinator
-worked on the electric fence
-started improving the boat
-started tidying the boat house
Calm and sunny.
As of 1130, sighted from the tower, there are:
233 Stellar sea lions
269 California sea lions
100 Harbour seals
11 Elephant seals
The white fronted goose is still around.
Saw whale spouts and tail flukes to the West. Likely Gray whales.
-Washed desalinator bunker and water tank shed
-Pressure washed West wall of student house
A single, juvenile Greater White Fronted goose (Anser albifrons) arrived a few days ago and has been rustling around the middle of Greater Race Rock. This species was also documented at Race Rocks on May 2012, May 2007 and September 2007. Thanks Ann for verifying the species.
At the end of September a juvenile elephant seal was on the jetty for roughly a week. It had the classic signs of a scabby molt. Scabby molt is a skin disease that attacks elephant seals between the ages of eight months and two years old. Two-year-old elephant seals often suffer from a skin disease known as the northern elephant seal skin disease or NESSD for short. This form of dermatitis is also often referred to as scabby molt. This ulcerative skin disease can either infect a small portion of the fur and underlying skin or spread to cover up to 60% or more of this outer protective layer. Although, in most cases, the elephant seals heal up without any further problems, sometimes, secondary bacterial infections and/or sepsis can lead to death.
Check out this link to a paper by Beckamn et al, 1997 that describes this disease.
-Ran desalinator
-Washed solar panels
-Washed exterior windows on Student house
-Tidied Student house basement and bathroom
-Hung pictures in student house
-Fixed underwater camera issue with help from Jonathan
Pretty calm all day. Intermittent showers, moments of sun. 2 ft swell still running
Erik brought Maciek (our new volunteer) out this morning, he’ll stay until Friday to help out with two person projects.
Tharis came out for a visit for a few hours just to see the awesomeness of Race Rocks.
Students from the college and Catrin Brown came out for a lab on food webs, and Libby Mason’s brother (whose name escapes me right now) also came out with the students.
First day that I didn’t see any marine tour boats
Lots of commercial fishing boats heading back out to sea now that the bad weather has passed
Coast Guard was heading out this evening
Spotted a California sea lion with a line around its neck
Noticed a Glaucous winged gull with a broken wing
-Ran desalinator
-Cleaned tops of batteries and replaced cups; tidied battery room
-Chopped up log along jetty
-Reset Davis instruments computer. It was having issues since I installed the UPS yesterday.
-Posted missing seawater data to the log from February and August
-Posted branded sea lion photos to the log
Calm this morning, with mixed weather all day. Started out SE, backed to Westerly. Periods of torrential rain. DND blasting: 1200, 1205. Both big, loud single bangs.
Tour boats: 9
22 Canada Geese
Keeping my eye out for Sooty Shearwaters, no sign yet
Mammal Count from tower at 1130
9 elephant seals behind boat shed and on jetty 47 harbour seals (mostly Middle Rocks)
129 Stellar sea lions (mostly along the North shore of the main island)
200 California sea lions (mostly along the South shore in front of the student house)
Seems like this bad weather compelled a lot of the sea lions to leave. Maybe they’re just out in the water waiting for the swell and surge to ease up.
I spotted the Stellar sea lion with the line around his neck again today and got a few pictures.
-entered and sent water sampling data to IOS
-compiled month end report
-photographed branded sea lions
-fixed electric fence after storm damage
-tidied keepers house
The storm arrived today. Calm in the morning. Blew 30 kts SE for the afternoon. Backed to 30 kts WSW this evening.
Waves big enough to break over the whole jetty.
Most of the sea lions are gone.
The elepant seals came ashore and are piled up behind the boat shed. A new molty juvenile arrived today.
7 tour boats this morning when it was calm
Saw a raven this morning.
Also saw a Stellar sea lion with a line around it’s neck, but it disapeared before I could get a photo.
-ran desalinator
-DFO boat count
-water sample (thankfully while it was still calm)