Category Archives: Ecoguardians Log

January 10th Census

Posted on by

Weather: Overcast, but mostly sunny over the last few days. winds 15-20knots.

This feels like we got more sun in January 2021 all of 2020.

Visitors/Traffic: Pretty quiet week, a few fishing boats driving by.

Ecological Notes: Newest Elephant Seal pup was born today. This makes 3 pups total, with the oldest nearing the end of his nursing period. His mom is looking VERY depleted, with 3 more days estimated until the end of her nursing period. His mom has also had a large behavioural change: previously she would ‘fight’ with the Beachmaster when we attempted mating, but over the last 24 hours she’s now much more receptive to his advances. 13-14 times a day receptive.

Cheermeister at 19 days. Looking fat and healthy as his mom gets more and more depleted. In 2020 we saw the pups nurse for 23 days, so he’s getting close to the end of ‘free food’.

Census:

Gulls: 259

Cormorants: 719

Eagles: 6

Turnstones: 22

Elephant Seals: 8 [2 bulls, 3 females, 3 pups]

Steller Sea Lions: 160

California Sea Lions: 121

Harbour Seals: 10

Proof that I take photos of other animals than Elephant Seals. SE Steller Rookery going strong.

Mothers seem to have lots of aggression shortly after a pup is born. Every pup we’ve seen get born here coincides with a bought of mom-on-mom aggression. Although Courtney has pointed out that this is my interpretation of their behaviour, and this could just be a ‘welcome to the fraternity of motherhood’ moment.

Mating looks rough. In larger rookeries this often results in pups getting squished. Here, Cheermeister just needs to avoid getting pinned and he should be good. He’s repetitively gotten in the middle of that mating between his mom and the Beachmaster and hasn’t died…. yet.

Peace descends. As with all things Elephant Seal: the chaos doesn’t last long. After 30 min of excitement everyone rolls over and falls asleep until tomorrows moment of activity,

 

Elephant Seals From the Remote Control Camera

Posted on by
Elephant seal pups

Three mother Elephant seals and two of the pups, the newest pup is hiding beyond the top right mom.

This year, so far there has been a very successful set of births of Elephant seals at Race Rocks. This is the 13th year that Elephant seals have been breeding and having births in the ecological reserve.  Currently three females and four pups along with a large male can be seen from the remote-controlled  camera 1 from the top of the tower:

Elephant seal pup and male

26 days old Elephant seal pup and the male ~8 year old male.

nursing Elephant seal pup

nursing Elephant seal pup born January 12 2021.

Elephant seal pup born in December

Elephant seal pup born December 22 2020.

 

Humpback Whales Feeding off Race Rocks

Posted on by

There has been 2 humpbacks hanging around the Becher Bay – Race Passage for the last couple of weeks. They have always been a little bit distant from the Lighthouse, but on December 30th 2020 they came right up to the SW corner of the lighthouse and did some feeding right at the current line. There’s lots of turbulence, so it could be some bubblenetting or lungefeeding. Really cool to see them use the crazy currents around Race Rocks to get a meal in.

Elephant Seal Pup Growth

Posted on by

The first Elephant Seal pup of the 2021 birthing season came on December 22 2020, and began it’s 23 days of nursing the day after (it took him awhile to figure out how to nurse). Elephant seal pups only have a couple of weeks to get big enough and healthy enough to survive alone after their moms wean them and abandon them on Race Rocks; which means their life is essentially just to feed, nap, and snuggle with their moms. It’s hard to show how impressive it is to see how fast they put on weight, with the pup doubling in size over the first few days. Here’s a video of the growth of ‘Cheermeister’ over his first 12 days of life.

 

January 2nd Wildlife Census

Posted on by

Weather: We’re getting that classic winter weather now: gusty winds and intermittent rain. A few moments of >30knots.

Visitors/Traffic: Lots of boats coming by to view the sea lions. A dive boat checking out the island and 3 large whale watching boats coming up to the jetty.

Ecological Notes: The newborn elephant seal (Cheermeister) is doing great! Doubling in size for the first several days, and now he’s just a fat little seal. Another female elephant seal has shown up all fat and ready to birth. We had a pretty epic battle between the 2 large male elephant seals on December 27th, and since then the 2 males have been sleeping off their battle damage.

Another day where the island is full of eagles and we’re seeing much less other birds.

Census:

Gulls: 290

Cormorants: 22

Eagles: 22

Elephant Seals: 5

Steller Sea Lions: 1

California Sea Lions: 11

Turnstones: 11

Harlequin Ducks: 11

Oystercatchers: 23

The flock of Oystercatchers seem to come and go. I wonder where they are when they’re not on the island?

Elephant Seals are really cute.

Why do Elephant Seals have these huge noses? So they can look all cool after battling for dominance. Just a theory.

For having only a few prominent teeth I’m pretty impressed with the amount of damage these Elephant Seals can cause.

Baby Cheermeister is FAAAAT.

The loser of the ‘Jetty Battle’ actually wobbled away with less damage than the winner. Will there be a new beachmaster next year?

Elephant Seal Pup Growth – Day by day

Posted on by

The first Elephant Seal pup of the 2021 birthing season came on December 22 2020, and began it’s 23 days of nursing the day after (it took him awhile to figure out how to nurse). Elephant seal pups only have a couple of weeks to get big enough and healthy enough to survive alone after their moms wean them and abandon them on Race Rocks; which means their life is essentially just to feed, nap, and snuggle with their moms. It’s hard to show how impressive it is to see how fast they put on weight, with the pup doubling in size over the first few days. Here’s a video of the growth of ‘Cheermeister’ over his first 12 days of life.

https://youtu.be/ltMsnNRYTmU
   
Also see other posts on elephant seal pups born at Race Rocks, the most northerly pupping colony for e-seals on the Pacific coast:  https://www.racerocks.ca/tag/pup/

December 2020 Sea Water Data

Posted on by

Also available from DFO here, along with data from other sites on the West Coast.

December 2020:

Day Time Temp °C Sal ppt
1 14:00 8.7 31.7
2 14:30 8.7 31.5
3 15:00 8.6 31.6
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 19:30 8.7 31.7
8 20:30 8.6 31.6
9 8:30 8.6 31.5
10 9:30 8.5 31.5
11 10:30 8.6 31.6
12 11:00 8.5 31.7
13 12:00 8.6 31.8
14 13:00 8.5 31.7
15 13:45 8.7 31.6
16 15:00 8.3 32
17 16:40 8.3 32.3
18 15:45 8.4 31.9
19 16:20 8.3 31.8
20 10:00 8.5 31.9
21 10:30 8.1 31.7
22 8:00 8 31.9
23 9:30 8.1 31.8
24 10:30 7.9 31.6
25 10:00 8 31.6
26 10:30 8.2 31.3
27 10:00 8.2 31.3
28 11:00 8.1 31.3
29 12:00 8.1 31.5
30 17:00 8.1 31.7
31 16:00 8.1 31.6

Investigations on Correlations

Posted on by

Questions on whether or not there are correlations in nature between two or more observed events can often be an idea for interesting investigations.   Here are some examples:

Solar radiation and UV levels

  1. In graphs aboveof a sunny day in late February both UV and Solar show a rise at the same time of day .. However check at other times of the year in the records at http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72 to answer the question about whether  there is always a correlation between these two abiotic factors. 
  2. Temperature and salinity: : examine this graph and see if you can make some conclusions about the correlation between seawater temperature and salinity , or between temperature and any of the other factors shown in the weather station graphs
  3. Wind speed and barometric pressure : here you might look for examples of negative correlations– in the file from the race rocks weather station http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?compare wind and barometric pressure data,
  4. Link to the satellite page from the Physical factors page to the satelite page, and on it go to the Weather Model – North Pacific Surface Pressure and Wind website . Track one of the low barometric pressure circles across the Pacific and predict what effect it will have on wind in 6 or 12 hours.. This works especially well in the winter months
  5. Go to the pages of photographs done by Pam Birley taken on the Race Rocks cameras. Since they are published by the month, look for correlations in her observations . Are all species always seen at the same time of the year, ie does presence correlate with season. See if you can use her pictures to show presence/absence of migratory or resident species and correlate that with seasons. 

Christmas Bird Count at Race Rocks 2020

Posted on by

Today was the annual Christmas bird count. Martin Stewart provided the transportation on the boat Ecosphere for Matt and Courtney Cameron to go out to Race Rocks Ecological reserve from Pedder Bay with Garry Fletcher. 

Observations were done from the marine a out through Pedder bay and then we docked at Race Rocks to be met by Courtney the Ecoguardian.  We had only a brief window of time, probably an hour  there before the wind started to pick up from the North East, but that was adequate to get a good count of the birds on shore.

Pam Birley from England took these photos on camera 5 :

Striking in their abundance were the and Pelagic and Brandts Cormorants. On leaving we circled around the South side of the islands and out past West Rock where there were also large numbers of cormorants.  From West Race Rocks we went over to Emdyck Pass behind Bentinck Island and found another large gathering of Cormorants, and some alcids.  The other bird that seemed much more frequent than previous years were the Black Turnstones

On the island, after stepping carefully past a male elephant seal on the jetty, we were able to view the new pup and mother elephant seal with the large male up on the lawn by the house. 

The following three sets of data are from their e-bird posts,

Continue reading →