Category Archives: Mammal Notes

A new yellow railing

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The 21st has been a beautiful and perfect sunny day. We got many watchers coming to see the place and entertained by the sea lion’s show on the rocks. That day was dedicated to the repainting of the yellow railing on the jetty. It took the 4 of us 5 hours of work but the result was stunning. We were happy! Guy folded for good the blue hose and did some fiberglass work on the Whaler. The jetty area where we spent the day was pretty stinky and noisy, our dear neighbors being so closed even some staying at the end of the jetty. They get used to us but I am not sure if we got used to them!  2 boats with fishing gear in the water came close today. One of them understood quickly that he could stay and left …

 

Summer work

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Guy finally put a second fence around the student house and it has been working efficiently since: Humans and their belonging are now well protected. Every day we can see more sea lions around and on the main island. Our 2 students finished the trailer-painting job. The young gulls now fly and swim to the southern rocks and there are fewer birds everyday so it ‘s not anymore an adventure going across the island. The 20th has been a pretty windy day from 29.5knots in the morning to 29.5 late in the afternoon

Fog, fog, and fog

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On Race Rocks the fog rolled in the morning and afternoon so the girls had the opportunity to get used to the island cacophony: Horn, gulls and sea lions concert: “initiation” day! They found a dead harbor seal pup on the east side of the island and made a first estimation of the animals on the island from the top of the tower. At 6:00PM the fog was back and the horn honks almost the whole night.

2 new residents on the rocks

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Weather: 21 knots early rising 25 knots in the afternoon – Air temperature: 12 degrees Celsius -Water 12 degrees too. Barometric pressure: 1014 (HPA).
Birds: I saw a blue heron attacked by gulls so he left for the south Island and a fly of 20 cormorants. A big bloody chicken was under the diesel tank. This made a total of 9 dead found chickens.
Noemi and Catherine arrived for their 15 days of summer services. They came with Courtney and Chris. We went around and help them to settle in their new house. Courtney checked with Guy the desalinator and the testing they did showed that the membrane needed to be changed. After that they looked at the connections for the electrical fence and decided the spots needed protection from the sea lion’s invasion, especially around the 2 houses and the crane. The old ladder went ashore and will be replaced by a new stainless steel one.

Overcast and gale warning forecast

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They even spoke about some rain! It would have been a chance to get some rock cleaning done. I even didn’t think about the grass which was green long time ago, yellow a few days ago and brownish now with the lying sea lions. The generator and the desalinator were working in anticipation of the students: Noemi and Catherine who will be with us from tomorrow to the 27th .We did a check up in their house and cleaned the windows of the 2 houses. We found 2 more bodies of some very small chicks on the rocks: fight for territory between 2 gulls families I guess.

Sea lions on the grass

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That’s it: we are invaded. Sea lions slowly crawled on the grass behind the crane and pretty soon they were all on the same crowded spot, side by side in rows. Amazing when you see that for the first time. Guy tried to fix a new wind wane and an anemometer but it was impossible the gulls were too aggressive. He had to submit. Maybe next week

 

5 -1= 4

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Exceptional weather those last days: no wind, flat sea, sun.
Young gulls get bigger than the adults maybe because of a fluffy undercoat. They are almost ready to fly for good and they even sometimes attack the adults. When we came back from Pearson College on the 10th we found a young goose dead on the side of the water-sampling house, almost inside the old tree boat. Now we have only four of them. First we couldn’t tell what was the story behind but after a closed look we discovered a very neat, clean hole in the neck. It was clear that the bird was not killed for food but had been attacked. It’s not sure but the gulls could have done it: a territorial conflict.
We saw in the distance going towards the open ocean a really huge barge charged with a 4 or 5 five floors building! Maybe it was for an oil platform somewhere in the coast. We never saw something big like this one before. Speaking about boats around Race Rocks we have counted around 20 Sea lions watchers each day. The Sea lions get slowly closer. They are so beautiful and some pretty big. We saw one with a flasher. A few ones have a green tag and one have a big number on its skin

Animal Census

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Glaucous –winged gulls: 285
Chicks: 130 to 150
Californian Sea lions: 120
Northern Sea lions: 70
Harbour Seals: 50+young ones
Pelagic Cormorant: 3
Oystercatchers: 4
Pigeons-Guillemot: 60
Western Sandpipers: 60to70
Whimbrel: 1
Eagle: 1
Geese: 5
Elephant Seal:0 But Courtney from Second Nature saw 1 small one on middle island

What is going on around the place?

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Is something happening on the rock? Nothing. It ‘s what you could think from the tower top or from the seaplane that flies over almost everyday but at sea level it’s another story. Actually there is so much life by night and by day. Especially the nights are animated: We found 2 more dead chicken bodies, always at the same spot under the diesel tank, always killed the same way and left with all the guts fresh and bloody! Pretty disgusting! The Animal world is rough. We spotted some very violent attacks from adults gulls against chickens. The problem is when chicks run into a neighboring territory they get attacked and can be killed and now that they are trying to fly, they can’t control exactly where they land. When it’ s windy you can observe those flying practice everywhere. The wind helps them and some now manage to get 3 meters high in the air. 3 chicks spend all their day swimming in some shallow water, one parent checking from the rocks and there are there everyday but those are the only ones. Why not the others? Just a few Californian sea lions have landed on the main rock for now. The fence is ready anyway. We have been stock on Race rocks for a few days because of the wind but we kept busy and not bored. At 7:00PM we had 40knots but it slowed down at 26 knots at 8:00. Calm evening