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.

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?

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.