Category Archives: Rare Bird

A Busy and Beautiful Day!

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Today was the definition of perfect! Not even the smallest amount of wind, clear skies, and animals everywhere!

Tomorrow is supposed to be quite windy so I took full advantage of the good weather and barely spent any time inside.

I also got a visit from the Coast Guard helicopter when they came to check in on a few things, that’s always a fun visit! And because it’s a small world, I just so happened to know the pilot!

Animal Notes:

  • The Red-footed booby is still here! Has most recently decided to hangout on the main island, just in front of the house.
  • I did not see the sea otter or the fur seal today but I did manage to get some better photos of the otter, well…at least photos where you can tell it’s actually an otter!
  • Still plenty of humpbacks around but not as many as I’ve had previously.
  • I saw a heron today, not exactly a rare bird but I haven’t seen them here before, and never standing on a kelp bed! I also saw a kingfisher yesterday but it was much too fast for a photo!

Our recently disentangled sea lion looking GREAT.

 

The new sea otter in town…I’ve been calling him Oswald.

Facility Work:

  • Cleaned main house windows
  • Topped up batteries
  • Cleaned algae off side of main house
  • Fence repair

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 11
  • Private: 3

DND Blasts:

  • 4 throughout the day, animals alert but minimal disturbance

A Blog for the Booby

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The Red-footed booby is still here and the past couple of days it’s done a few close circles around the main rock and house so I’ve been able to get a closer look. Although it’s very difficult to photograph it while it moves so fast!

As they do with most birds, the gulls chase and harass the booby, it’s like they just can help but be menaces to other animals!

I’ve never been a bird person but working at Race Rocks has taught me so much, and now I can add Red-footed booby to my list of bird facts. Here is some of what I’ve learned:

  • They are the smallest of the booby species
  • They nest in trees as opposed to on the ground
  • They live in tropical and sub-tropical areas such as the Galapagos and Hawaii
  • Their diet consists of flying fish and squid, in addition to other smaller schooling fish
  • Their predators include Galapagos hawks and coconut crabs (yes crabs!)
  • The oldest recorded Red-footed booby was over 22 years old
  • This is the second Red-footed booby ever spotted in British Columbia

Now I have something thoughts and questions, and I’m aware they are not rational…

  • What warm tropical island did it come from?
  • Does it know it’s in Canada?
  • Is it cold? Confused?
  • Has it ever seen a harbour seal before now?
  • If a crab is its usual predator, the bald eagles must be TERRIFYING.
  • How long will it stay?
  • Will any of its friends show up?

Anyway, I’m really enjoying trying to find it each day and take somewhat blurry photos of it. Maybe one day before I leave I’ll snap a decent one!

As for the rest of the blog:

Facility work:

  • Painted the new door for the main house
  • Cleaned main house windows
  • Ran the generator

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 15
  • Private: 12
  • Paddle board: 2
  • Jetski: 1

Census Day!

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Another stunning day on the rocks! Calm seas, and beautiful sun all day long. Nothing beats waking up to watch the sunrise and thinking it can’t get better and then you watch the sunset as whales lunge feed in the distance.

Today was census day, a few new birds (for me) and surprisingly low sea lion numbers compared to Christines last count and compared to my counts at this time in 2025 and 2024. We had a good rain a few days ago and that usually clears out a lot of them so I imagine they’re slowly coming back now and by next Saturday the numbers will be higher.

Mammals:

  • Steller sea lion: 330
  • California sea lion: 390
  • Harbour seal: 49
  • Humpback whale: tons, as far as the eye can see

Birds:

  • Canada goose: 10
  • Gulls: 608
  • Cormorants: 502
  • Turnstones: 73
  • Sparrows: 20+ but they are so fast I can’t keep track!
  • Oyster catcher: 7
  • Harlequin duck: 22
  • Greater yellow leg: 1
  • Osprey: 1
  • Red-Footed booby: 1

Shout out to my cousin (and wildlife biologist) Nick for helping me ID the osprey and greater yellow leg!

Facility work:

  • Ran generator in the morning, solar took it the rest of the way!
  • Minor fence repairs
  • Started weeding around the old wheel bricks

Lonely Little Steller Pup

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The red-footed booby was here bright and early his morning, seems to be going back and forth between the western rocks and the southeast side. It also seems to have quite the fan club of boats coming out to check it out.

Came across another sea lion with an entanglement scar, bringing the total to 5, plus the one that still has an active entanglement.

Active entanglement, unsure what the material is.

Another wildlife note – there is a small Steller sea lion pup that I have yet to see with a mom in the 3 days I’ve been here. He is underweight but not terribly so and is still bright and alert. He spends his time chasing the male California sea lions and today decided to try and eat a small rock. Will see if he sticks around, and hopefully mom comes back for him!

Facility work:

  • Ran generator
  • Topped up battery electrolytes
  • Cleaned main house windows

Vessels:

  • Paddleboard: 2
  • Private: 4
  • Eco: 12

A Red-Footed Booby!? Here?!

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Beautiful day today, cloudy but flat calm seas. Only a few minor repairs for the fence today, the new system is pretty sleek!

As per usual most of my notes are wildlife related. I found 4 sea lions with entanglement scars today, two are untagged so were likely able to free themselves. Two were tagged, one was the CSL the team at VAMMR disentangled in August about a month ago, and the other one took me a bit longer to track down the story.

Entanglement scar, no tag.

Entanglement scar and tagged, this one was rescued in August thanks to Eva’s great tracking and reporting.

As it turns out, he was disentangled by a NOAA team in 2021 on San Miguel Island when he was only a couple of years old. It’s wild that he’s come so far, but he looks great!

Later in the day I got a call over the radio from one of the eco-tourism boats in the area to let me now a few transients were coming by. They passed quickly but were awesome to see, and for the first time in my LIFE I actually stopped photographing killer whales to photograph…a bird!!!

But not just any bird, it was a red-footed booby! It was first sighted around Race Rocks a few weeks ago and was apparently hanging around but I really didn’t think I’d get to see it. My photos aren’t great so hopefully he’ll stick around for some better ones!

 

 

Facility work:

  • Fence repairs
  • Ran the generator

Vessels:

  • Paddleboard: 1
  • Private: 2
  • Eco tourism: 15

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?