Category Archives: Ecoguardians Log

December 23 Wildlife Census with a new baby Elephant Seal

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Weather: A bit of light sleet/snow, light winds ~15knots.

Visitors/Traffic: 2 Whale watching boats, and a supply run by Gregg.

Ecological Notes: Baby Elephant Seal born last night! Around 22:00 at night our resident female (pink tag #2, also referred to as ‘Beverly’). The Beachmaster was present for the birth, and initially I thought he might be looking to kill the pup to force the female into estrus. Nope, just an observer, sniffing and mouthing the newborn pup, but no damage caused.

Newborn Elephant Seal Pup, which we’ve taken to calling ‘Cheermeister’.

Lots of eagles present in today’s Census,  which may be related to the reduced number of birds counted.

Census:

Gulls: 164

Cormorants (mostly Brant’s): 430

Eagles: 13

Elephant Seals: 5

Steller Sea Lions: 329

California Sea Lions: 464

Turnstones: 22

Green Wing Teal: 4

Long Tailed Duck: 5

Canada Geese: 2

Steller Sea Lion haulout to the SE of the lighthouse.

It’s a Cormorant party.

Eagles on the island mean that a lot of the birds are choosing to be elsewhere.

Any space without Sea Lions and eagles mean the birds can really stretch their wings.

Elephant Seals pick the weirdest spots to sleep. Sometimes it’s inconvenient for maintenance, and sometimes it just looks gross. Soaking your wounded nose in a poopy puddle? Gross.

 

Baby Elephant Seal for the Holidays

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Newborn Elephant Seal pup! After a night of squawking we were met in the morning by this adorable squishy new baby. It makes the cutest sounds!

Weather: 2 days of over 30 knots. Sleet on the afternoon of December 21st after a morning of NW bringing lots of logs into the jetty.

Visitors: 4 tourism boats coming out to view wildlife. Coast Guard doing maneuvers in the crazy currents. Navy ship and submarine out for a jaunt.

 

Maintenance: Greg got the desalinator going. We got Ocean Network Canada’s equipment up and running, I’m told it measures the tides and currents using radar?! Pretty cool. Maybe the subject of a blog post already?

Wildlife: The Elephant Seals showed up in the first week of December, so we were expecting a few months of them hanging out on Race Rocks before anything significant happened. Just kidding! The lone female on the island (pink tag #2) gave birth at around 10pm on December 21st after a chilly afternoon with a bit of snow.

Baby Elephant Seal #1. Could be last years pup? They are thought to return to their same birthing/moulting grounds.

The big male that has been posted up with the female since the beginning of December seems to be pretty protective of the new baby, making sure the rowdy teen male seal knows he is not welcome around the female and pup. There is another large male hanging out next to the generator building, and a small male (possibly last years pup) was hanging out here for a few weeks before heading back into the ocean.

The big male chased the female around the island for a few days before she found her favourite spot and posted up. Turns out those rocks right in from of her is the best nursery.

Momma Seal: Pink tag #2

Having a well deserved rest with her newborn the the giant male stands guard for other males.

We’ve still got lots of California and Steller Sea Lions hanging out on the island/jetty, with lots of bait balls and kelp rafts drifting by. There’s been at least 2 humpbacks feeding between Race Rocks and Edye Point for a few days.

 

Only 1 gull has died in the last week, and was pretty quickly eaten by a couple of eagles.

Because every Race Rocks blog should feature a lighthouse photo.

 

December 18 2020 Wildlife (Census)

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Visitors/Traffic: A few whale watching boats and small fishing vessels came out to look at the sea lions.

Ecological Notes: One new observation of a gull acting weird before dying and being eaten by eagles. Currently there are 4 elephant seals on Race Rocks: One dominant male, one submissive male, one juvenile male, and one pregnant female. Looks like this female showed up a little earlier than last year, which may be an attempt to birth and nurse in peace before other mothers show up.

Census:

Gulls: 318

Cormorants (mostly Brant’s): 816

Eagles: 3

Elephant Seals: 4

Steller Sea Lions: 330

California Sea Lions: 144

Turnstones: 11

 

 

A Diver and Dying Seagulls

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Weather:

  • Visibility 10-20 NM, great visibility especially in the few hours before sunset
  • Sky partially overcast
  • Wind 5-15 knots W
  • Calm seas for the most part, other than strong ebbs and floods

Visitors: Some pleasure craft over the past days. There have been some supply deliveries as well as a few visitors for various reasons. Today we saw what looked to be a private vessel enter the reserve and put a diver in the water. The dive lasted less than ten minutes and when the diver was back in the boat, they left quickly.

Ecological Notes: 

  • The elephant seals are all here still – the two large and two small ones from earlier in the week. The two larger seals and one of the smaller ones have hauled themselves up high onto the island, and the other smaller seal looks to be more comfortable closer to the water. Look for them on the webcam!
  • We’ve had a few more strange seagull deaths with the same symptoms: gradual weakening (reluctance to fly and a lethargic walk), separation from the rest of the seagulls, eventually progressing to being unable to fly, and finally silent coughing/choking movements followed by death.
  • Two orcas spotted on Monday, behind north rock and heading east.
  • There’s still a heavy sea lions presence, mainly on the jetty and the surrounding rocks, and around the base of the lighthouse.
  • Mid week we had around 20 eagles in the area and were able to catch a few quick pictures of them in flight!

 

Clear Skies + Elephant Seals! (census)

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky mostly clear, overcast in late afternoon
  • Wind 0-10 knots N
  • Sea state: calm, glassy!

Visitors: A small number of pleasure crafts trickling through. Only a handful of tourism vessels over the weekend and a few through the late week.

Ecological Notes: 

  • This week has brought some of our favorite visitors to Race Rocks: elephant seals! We’ve been joined by two huge male elephants seals as well as two younger pups that look to be only a year or so old. Unfortunately we haven’t seen any tagged elephant seals yet so that’s all we know for now.
  • We’ve still been spotted seagulls displaying odd behavior. We’ve noticed a total of 7 over the past month.
  • Whale sightings have slowed down now, seemingly as the weather gets colder and salmon runs slow. We have still been seeing around one per day but the sightings are less consistent.
  • Today we noticed a tiny sea lion pup nursing! We mostly only see male sea lions on race rocks, but recently we’ve been noticing very small sea lions arriving. It’s hard to tell the sex of sea lions from a distance so this was the first female we’ve identified in the crowd.
  • The bald eagles have continued to visit to fish and hunt gulls in the early to late morning. They particularly like to sit under the tower containing camera 5, sometimes up to 10 at once! The color variation throughout their different life stages is particularly striking.

Census:

  • 54 Harbour seals
  • 177 Stellar sea lions
  • 233 California sea lions
  • 4 Elephant seals
  • 275 Brandt’s + pelagic cormorants (too far away to distinguish)
  • 6 Double-crested cormorants
  • 5 Surfbirds
  • 3 Dunlins
  • 25 Black turnstones
  • 12 Harlequin ducks
  • 7 Bald eagles
  • 290 Thayer’s gulls

Measurement Exercise

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Today we had a request from Meghan Byrne, a 6th grade science teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District. She was doing a lesson with her students on size and scale and she was interested in using the following picture from this blog of the elephant seal measuring device – and letting students determine its length.

 

 

 

So I thought that would be a good exercise to include here for school students. Ecoguardian Mara has provided the following photos of the boat ramp rail so you can now calculate the length of the small elephant seal. 

Be sure to calculate the length of the Elephant seal in both centimeters and in inches.  Then you can also convert it to Metres and Feet . 

Mara sent another picture of a larger male, the brackets on the rail can just be made out so calculate his size.

 

A Big Storm + Lots of Birds! (census)

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Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 14 NM
  • Sky partially overcast
  • 30-55 Knots SW
  • Sea state: swells up to 2m, otherwise 3-4+ ft chop

Visitors/Traffic: Nothing other than a few fishing and shipping vessels in the strait.

Ecological Notes: 

  • We found another apparently healthy gull dead today; this is the fourth one since the beginning of the month. We now have two preserved for necropsy, which we hope to transport to land soon to be investigated. They have all displayed the same odd symptoms: weakness in the wings progressing to unable to move, wings dropping to the sides, and unable to make any sound.
  • This week there have been an incredible number of cormorants in the reserve! An underrated bird, they are very fun to watch as they waddle, preen, and fish.
  • We’ve been noticing some fungi popping up around the island now that we are into the rainy season! Photos below. These are in addition to the shaggy mane mushrooms we found last spring fruiting beside the composters.
  • Last week we spotted another “neck wrap”: a california sea lion with some kind of pollution material embedded into his neck. Unfortunately it seems that he is no longer present in the reserve, making a rescue improbable.

Census:

  • 4 black oystercatchers
  • 1 dunlin
  • 1 ruddy turnstone
  • 9 black turnstones
  • 3 surfbirds
  • 500 Thayer’s gulls
  • 17 Canada geese
  • 1550 Cormorants (wow!)
  • 2 bald eagles
  • 100 stellar sea lions
  • 502 California sea lions
  • 2 harbour seals

Seawater Data: Salinity and Temperature, November 2020

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

November -2020:

DATE time Degrees-C Salinity-ppt
1 13:30 9 32.3
2 14:30 9.2 31.8
3 15:00 9.3 31.7
4 16:00 9.3 31.8
5 –
6 –
7 –
8 –
9 8:00 9.2 31.6
10 9:00 9.3 31.7
11 10:00 9.1 31.5
12 11:00 9.2 31.3
13 12:00 9 31.7
14 12:30 8.8 32
15 13:00 8.6 32.2
16 14:00 8.7 31.9
17 14:30 8.8 31.7
18 15:30 8.7 31.8
19 16:30 8.6 31.6
20 –
21 –
22 8:00
23 9:00 8.8 31.8
24 10:00 9 31.7
25 10:30 9.1 31.8
26 11:00 9 31.9
27 12:00 8.8 31.6
28 12:30 8.9 31.5
29 13:00 8.9 31.6
30 13:30 8.8 31.7

Busy Shorebirds, Sea Lion Shot?

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky partly cloudy, blue sky and sun!
  • Wind 0-15 Knots NW
  • Water calm

Visitors:

  • A few supply drops to the island otherwise quiet, not much traffic
  • Some navy vessels on the water today as some blasting was taking place on the DND land.

Ecological Notes:

  • Today we spotted a young seagull displaying the same symptoms as the one we found a few weeks ago: extending its neck as if to catch its breath or perhaps dislodge something stuck inside its throat. We noticed it initially because it had separated from the group and had tucked under some foliage. Within 15-20 minutes it appeared to be unable to move aside from lifting its head, and with wings splayed it died. We did inspect inside the mouth and throat that we could see and nothing appeared to be lodged inside. We are not sure what caused these deaths (or if it was the same cause), but we are interested to learn more. We are hoping that we will be able to send it for a necropsy.
  • On Saturday we were surprised by a large male elephant seal! He was so huge that he dwarfed even the largest sea lions here in the reserve. Wow! He must have had places to be and moved along the next day.
  • Our whale sightings have slowed down now, although we have been still spotting at least 1 humpback whale every day. They seem to appear around peak ebb current to feed around the reserve.
  • We have been periodically checking on our dead sea lion that appeared last week. Although not officially determined, after some input we strongly believe that the animal was shot. It appears as if it was shot and then made it onto land here before passing. While it is a heartbreaking find, we are excited to observe the decomposition process.
  • We have been observing gulls pecking at the remains of gulls killed by eagles. The cannibalism is not necessarily a surprise to us, having also observed adult gulls eating the chicks of other gulls over the nesting seasons. However, it is interesting, given how much food is readily available.

 

Deceased Sea Lion + Chilly Nights

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Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 15 NM
  • Sky partially overcast
  • Wind 5-10 knots NE
  • Water mostly calm

Visitors and traffic: 

  • Not much traffic with the strong winds this week and last (55 knots!) only a handful of whale watching boats when conditions allow

Notes: 

  • Just above the intertidal east of the jetty we found the carcass of a deceased male Stellar sea lion. It’s the early stages of decomposition and we think it died at least 4 days ago since we accidentally captured it in the background of one of our photos. We are not sure how it died and it has no obvious injuries. We are hopeful that we might be able to learn more! We’re not sure if it died here or was washed ashore by the strong swells last weekend.
  • Last week we forgot to mention that we were joined by a sweet young elephant seal who had hidden among the sea lions near the jetty. It was not tagged so unfortunately we don’t have any more information and it was gone by the next day.
  • There have been an incredible number of eagles in the reserve eating both fish and seagulls. It’s amazing to watch them hunt and even more incredible to watch them carefully pluck a bird before digging in (albeit a bit gory).
  • We have still been seeing whales every day, primarily humpbacks but we have also been thrilled to see the occasional pod of orcas passing by. Today we spotted one young whale tail slapping continuously for about 5 minutes before moving along past Pedder Bay. It’s comforting to see the whales exhibiting their regular feeding patterns now that there are fewer vessels on the water. Now that we have become more tuned observers of whales, the behavioral contrast between vessels present and absent can be very stark.

Census: 

  • 195 Stellar sea lions
  • 330 California sea lions
  • 1 Ruddy turnstones
  • 22 Black turnstones
  • 2 Sanderlings
  • 17 Harbour seals
  • 6 Bald eagles
  • About 600 Pelagic cormorants and Brandt’s cormorants
  • About 300 California gulls