Category Archives: Rare Bird

Sept. 17, 2025 – Sea lions, Whales, and Vultures- Oh My!

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What a great first day alone at the station in terms of wildlife! Since sunrise there were constant whale blows in all directions, probably half a dozen humpbacks at any given time. Later in the afternoon I was treated to a spectacular show by a young humpback whale who began breaching on the East side of the island and then didn’t stop as it breached its way North for nearly an hour. One of the whale watch guides counted 24 breaches in a row… go little guy go! I found the sea lion with the flasher in its mouth again and decided to make a report to DFO and the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre. Typically they need at least 2 entangled animals with consistant sightings to warrant a rescue attempt, so I’ll be keeping my eye out. I also spotted the Cali with the transmitter tag (likely the one Ian saw previously) along with some branded and flipper tagged sea lions. With all the mammals stealing the light, I nearly forgot about the birds. Interestingly, I encountered a Turkey Vulture scavenging among the sea lions and managed to take its photo in flight (below).

Wildlife Highlights:

  • Humpback whales 6-10; juvenile breaching
  • Turkey vulture
  • Branded and tagged sea lions

Facility work:

  • Minimal fence repairs, just a few lines touching the ground that I tightened up
  • Took my first water sample measurement at peak flood
  • Plans to continue work on the water maker and continue my site briefings were foiled as the wind picked up. Greg & Richard decided to come out tomorrow instead.
  • Took the day to familiarize myself with the SOPs and where things are at the station.

Weather:

  • Sky: Mostly clear skies
  • Wind: W 8-10kts in AM, down to SSW 3-6kts by afternoon
  • Sea state: Calm, small ripples <0.5m swell
  • Air temp: High 12C; Low 10C

Vessels:

Lots of vessel activity in and around Race Rocks. Peak whale watching around 12 and 3pm or so where there were up to 10 vessels nearby.

Happy Solstice

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Wildlife notes:

A few new exciting sightings today.  Two purple martins were spotted on top of the tower and on roof of the Keepers’s house around noon.  At 3 pm I discovered a purple martin had made its way down the chimney pipe into the wood stove. I am so glad the ashes were cold and I was able to get it back outside! A striking male harlequin duck visited the small bay on north east side of the island. A banded gull was observed.

Purple martin in the house

Male harlequin duck

Banded gull

 

Facility work:

  • cleaned solar panels
  • thistles

Vessels:

21 Ecotourism boats, 4 private boats

Weather:

First day since June 11 to experience calm seas in the morning. Clear skies, winds light ESE veering to W 8 by evening.

Leaving Race Rocks on a High Note

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It’s hard to believe a week has flown by!  The boat took me back to the “big island” shortly after 2 pm, but there was still plenty of time before they arrived to have an exciting moment. Daniel Donnecke from Rocky Point Bird Observatory persuaded me to do one last seawatch this morning, once again apparently showing that the birds that fly past Beechey Head do not come close by Race Rocks on their voyage east. It’s likely that they move across the strait over to the American side. It may be wind dependent, but we had no correlation at all the three days we did seawatches at the same time.

Seawatch is a fancy term for trying to identify little specks at the limit of your visual range. This is a Common Murre.

I cleaned the solar panels for the last time this week.  The gulls had been pretty reasonable the last couple of days except for that one section where it was bad every day.

Sparkling clean!

There were several other things to get done to prepare for my departure and Greg’s arrival, but I had plenty of time.  That is I had plenty of time until I turned the corner towards the house and saw a songbird on the ground.  There had only been a Song Sparrow and one or more Brown-headed Cowbirds on the island all week as far as passerines went, so this was good. And it got better when I realized the bird was a Yellow-headed Blackbird, an uncommon bird for Victoria. Normally, my camera is on my shoulder, but since I had been cleaning the solar panels, it was back at the generator building. I did have my phone with me, though, so I snapped a quick couple of documentation shots.  They were really bad, but showed some of the diagnostic features for the species. By the time I got back with the camera, the bird was gone. That just seemed weird, as normally a bird that lands on offshore islands does so because it needs to refuel.  I looked all around, but no luck. So I climbed the tower and searched the whole island from up there. Still no luck, so I came down and continued with my tasks. About two hours later, I looked out the window, and there it was!

Nice of him to stretch out a wing so you can see the white edges on the primary coverts.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds are common in the BC Interior. It’s possible that the smoke may have moved him to the coast.

I probably took 400 shots to make sure I got a few good ones. The time I took following him around, though, cut my packing and cleaning time down. I was just barely finished when the marine radio call came from the Second Nature that Greg and Jeff were only a few minutes away.

Greg’s stuff was unloaded and mine loaded, and before you knew it, we were headed back to Pearson College, leaving Greg on the dock-an unusual situation for him!

It’s been an amazing week, and I’m grateful to the folks at Pearson College for allowing me to serve as the relief Eco-guardian this week. I hope that I will get the chance to do this again!

Ecological Notes:

Mammals

1 Humpback Whale

2 Harbour Porpoise

Steller’s Sea Lion

California Sea Lion

Successful fishing!

Harbour Seal

Birds

5 Black Oystercatcher

10 Black Turnstone

41 Common Murre

65 Pigeon Guillemot

When in breeding plumage, the linings of the their mouths are as red as their feet.

6 Rhinoceros Auklet

1 Heermann’s Gull

60 California Gull

700 Glaucous-winged Gull

3 Pelagic Cormorant

15 cormorant sp.

1 Song Sparrow

1 Yellow-headed Blackbird

Facility Work: Cleaned all the solar panels and the dirty windows

Vessel Traffic: Shipping lanes were busy again today.  Several whale-watching boats ad 2 private fishing boats came by for the sea lions (which they saw) and the elephant seal (which they didn’t).

 Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?