Census Day

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles throughout the day
  • Wind:  0-10 NW throughout the day
  • Sky: clear all day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Mostly just whale watchers and other boats cruising by on this beautiful sunny day

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around but not as many as I thought there would be

Notes

  • DnD was blasting again today
  • I finally have a full fresh water tank so hopefully it rains soon so I can start pressure washing and cleaning the pathways and buildings off
  • Significantly less sea lions I expected I suspect many of them went for swim while I was doing the census because it was a rather hot day today but here are the numbers are I have right now

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 68
  • California Sea Lions – 97
  • Harbour Seals – 72
  • Gulls – 153
  • Cormorants – 73
  • Black Turnstones – 21
  • Sparrows – 24ish, hard to see and fast to fly off

Wishing for Rain

Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles this morning cleared up to 15 in the afternoon
  • Wind:  0-5 SE throughout the day
  • Sky: overcast this morning, clear skies in the afternoon
  • Water: calm all day

Boats/Visitors

  • quite a few ecotours

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around

Notes

  • having a hard time with the fence between the generator room and the guest house, the sea lions tear it down every couple hours
  • Also I have not seen the sea lion around that recently had the garbage removed from around its neck, I’ve been looking around for him
  • We could use some rain though, it would be easier to pressure wash around here if it rained first

Visitors

Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles throughout the day
  • Wind:  0-10 SW throughout the day
  • Sky: foggy morning only until about 9ish then it cleared up but still overcast
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Had Garry Fletcher come for a visit along with a year 4 Pearson alumni and another friend.
  • some ecotours came by today too

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around

Notes

  • Guy showed me how to use the pressure washer so hopefully get a few of this buildings looking nicer on the outside

Sunny Days

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles throughout the day
  • Wind:  10-15 SW throughout the day
  • Sky: cloudy this morning and cleared up in the afternoon
  • Water: calmish, fast current

Boats/Visitors

  • quite a few ecotours throughout the day

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around

Notes

  • wind was blowing a bit harder today but it was still sunny, no visitors or anything out of the ordinary

Sea Lion Rescue

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles throughout the day
  • Wind:  0-5 SW throughout the day
  • Sky: clear this morning, clouds rolled in around 3
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Fisheries along with a vet and people from the aquarium came by to help a sea lion who had a piece of rope or something like it wrapped around its neck

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions around

Notes

  • DnD was blasting again today
  • It was nice to have those people come around to help the sea lion out, they first sedated it via dart gun and once it was safe to approach they removed the garbage that was wrapped around the sea lions neck and monitored it until woke up and swam away

I am Back and the Census

Sorry about my last 10 days being absent but I am back now and here is an updated census.

Weather

  • Visibility: Pretty clear 15 Miles throughout today
  • Wind:  0-5 SW with small range all day
  • Sky: Sunny all day
  • Water: pretty flat but the current is very visible and moving

Boats/Visitors

  • I came in today and so did a few students to have a look around, we also had an engineer to come look at the new generator

Ecological

  • quite a bit of sea lions, I don’t see the elephant seal sticking around anymore and I have not seen any oyster catchers today. Also the sea otter in the north kelp patch is back

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 142
  • California Sea Lions: 186
  • Elephant Seals: 0
  • Harbour Seals: 28
  • Unspecified Gulls: 153
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 0
  • Cormorants: 18
  • Canada Geese: 12
  • Oystercatchers: 0
  • Black Turnstones: 48

 

Sun and Fog

Weather

  • Visibility: 0 Miles this morning, the fog horn was going off for a good portion of the morning but I am getting a very clear and beautiful sunset now
  • Wind:  10-15 SW which went up and down slightly throughout the day but around 10ish knots
  • Sky: thick fog for a bit and then it cleared right up in the afternoon
  • Water: pretty flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a few ecotours came by today

Ecological

  • The unspecified birds are still around and I have determined them to be black turnstones, however it is weird to see such a high number of them at once so it is possible there are some other species of surfbird mixed in there too

Notes

  • Had some power issues today, hopefully get everything fixed tomorrow and the dryer won’t die on me halfway through drying my laundry

Lazy Day

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind:  10-15 SW
  • Sky: overcast some rain
  • Water: pretty flat throughout the day

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours came by today

Ecological

  • Definitely more sea lions everyday plus that one female elephant seal that is sticking around

Notes

  • Puttered around today, almost have a full water tank again, and enjoyed taking photos of the frequently napping sea lions
  • Now that there is more cloud cover the solar panels aren’t bringing in a lot of energy so I do need to run the generator to run the desalinator

Foggy Day

Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles sometimes less throughout the day
  • Wind:  10-15 SW sometimes a bit lighter sometimes a bit stronger
  • Sky: Cloudy this morning for a bit and then foggy for awhile, cleared up in the afternoon now you can see some blue sky and sunshine
  • Water: mostly flat a little choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a special visit at 6:30 this morning, the Parliament Secretary to the Prime Minister of Canada and Minister of Youth dropped by for a quick visit

Ecological

  • Have to update my census, I saw an elephant seal this morning, a young female
  • the unspecified birds in the photo from yesterday are a type of gull that I still have not identified
  • There appears to be more sea lions everyday

Census Day

Weather

  • Visibility: Started off at 10 miles but closed in to the point the fog horn was going off for a good part of the morning and then a sunny break this afternoon and back to pretty cloudy now
  • Wind:  10-15 W this morning picked up to above 30, same direction
  • Sky: pretty cloudy with a little break in the afternoon
  • Water: pretty flat but the current is very visible and moving

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours today

Ecological

  • plenty of sea lions, not really seeing elephant seals, also there was about 26 of these birds I will post a picture of but I wasn’t what bird it was, will look into it.

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions: 176
  • California Sea Lions: 153
  • Elephant Seals: 0
  • Harbour Seals: 24
  • Unspecified Gulls: 212
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 0
  • Cormorants: 18
  • Canada Geese: 8
  • Oystercatchers: 8
  • Harlequinn Ducks: 0
  • Crows: 0
  • Unspecified bird: 26

Notes

  • Have not spotted the river otters again
  • Sea lions refused to budge when I went to get the water sample, I gave up and found a way around the one that would not move
  • They somehow dragged a ladder down the jetty so I had a tough time retrieving that because the ladder was attached to a rope that got wrapped around a rock, I managed to bring it up behind the boat shed, also the boat shed door looks to be in pretty rough shape the sea lions are always piled up against it