Category Archives: Underwater

4 DND blasts

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Fog on and off today. West winds picking up this afternoon to 35 knots. Clear skies most of the day. Barometric pressure peaking at midday for the last three days. Winds supposed to reach 30 knots tomorrow.

9 whale watching boats (although maybe more I couldn’t see through the fog)

4 blasts from DND in the first half of the day.

There are 5 elephant seals here now. They like to spend lots of time on the ramp and sleep on top of each other. The seal with the bloody mouth seems to be doing much better. The blood looked like it was coming from the gum.

We had a crew come out today and replace a number of windows in the keeper’s residence and the science centre. Chris and I went diving to retrieve the underwater video camera for its annual maintenance.

Caspian Terns

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Clear skies. Light variable winds. Force 1-2. The barometer has been on the rise today. Although the forecast for today called from strong West winds, the barometer does not lie, and it was a lovely calm day. The forecast for tomorrow is for the usual strong West winds in the afternoon. 1 tour boat I saw two Caspian Terns (Hydroprogne caspia) today. They briefly flew over the island in the morning, and then came back in the late afternoon while I was washing my dive gear. They stayed up pretty high, coming maybe as low as the top of the tower, and are really hard to photograph. But their loud croak and dark heads gave them away. I also saw a Heermans Gull (Larus heermanni ) while I was taking my dive kit apart. It’s the first one I’ve seen, but as far as gulls go, it is one of the easiest species to identify because of it’s dusky grey colour. According to the Cornell Bird lab, the Heermans Gull is “unmistakable; [it is the] only North American gull with a sooty gray body and a white head.” Erik came out today at low slack and we went for a dive. We cleaned the camera, checked some camera connections, and cleared the path through the kelp to the jetty. Ok visibility, but it is always awesome to get underwater.

Another Year of Remote Cam Photo Records by Pam Birley

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We are very fortunate to have our friend from England, Pam Birley continuing to provide a detailed watch from her home in Leicester on the happenings at Race Rocks via the two remote controlled cameras, 1 and 5  and the underwater camera 2. There are many stories revealed by her photo gallery on Flickr.  A sample of her work is presented below: Her  complete 2013 gallery is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/66339356@N00/albums

We can follow the patterns of marine mammal use of the islands for haulout and births, and individual accounts such as her “6-spot”, a harbour seal which she has observed on the same rock by the jetty since every year since 2007.  She tracks our breeding elephant seals and she is one of the few to catch the river otter scenes on the island as well.

Pam also has made some interesting captures on the Underwater Camera 2 . There are several species of fish and invertebrates shown and  a few unidentified ones show up as well .

Her accounts of the birds of Race Rocks are also invaluable. The  roosting patterns of many species, the nesting behaviour of black oystercatchers and glaucous-winged gulls, migratory shorebird stopovers as well as predation and scavenging are detailed in her gallery.

So thanks again to Pam Birley for her commitment to having continued her watch in 2013. Her contribution to “Citizen Science ” is appreciated. The 2013 gallery is here  

Posts tagged with Pam Birley can be seen here: 

 posts tagged with Webcam Visitor Observations can be seen here:

Links to the complete set of Pam’s Race Rocks images  is available here:

 

First Visitor

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Sunny all day, light to no wind. 7.5′ tide, the swell has dropped right off. Strange tide cycle and currents for the next couple days. Almost no current for the afternoon high tide.

Water visibility is crystal clear. If you’re thinking of going for a dive, now is the time.

1450 DND blast
1510 DND blast

Off station from 0910 to 1200 to bring Jamieson out to visit.
Got gas from Pedder Bay.

-ran desalinator
-washed solar panels
-sent branded sea lion photos to NOAA contact

the barometer is falling

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The first swell of the season is forecasted for this weekend and the barometer has been dropping with the approach of the low pressure system. The wind has been shifting from North to South-West all day, but it’s back to 5 kts West this evening.

The seawater visibility is getting really good. I can clearly see seals swimming and differentiate sea floor features from up in the lantern room.

There are ladybugs all over the place. They like to hide behind electric fence insulators.

5 marine tour boats

Students from the college came out again for a boat tour through the reserve

10 growly elephant seals by the jetty and boat shed

Mammal Count:
591 sea lions
182 seals

Sea lions on middle rocks counted by uploading a photograph into ImageJ

Sea lions on middle rocks counted by uploading a photograph into ImageJ

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-washed solar panels
-fixed a few hose leaks
-finished sea lion fence around East side of keepers house

Human Presence on the Reserve

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Diesel fill up with e-seal_

This past week, we delivered over 4000L of diesel to the island. Even though Race Rocks tries to source its energy from more sustainable practices like our solar panels, often they’re not sufficient to completely power the island. During the dark cloudy days we see so often in winter we rely on our diesel powered generator. Erik Shauff collects thousands of litres of diesel per load in a large metal container from Pedder Bay Marina and delivers it to the reserve by boat. Then we use an electric pump and hose system to transfer the diesel across the island into its holding tank. Pictured above is Misery supervising the process. Erik surveys the yellow diesel tank in the background.

Pod heading east

We also had a whale sighting in the past week. A pod of orcas (with at least one calf) passed through the south side of the reserve on Friday. As always, orcas attract alot of boat traffic. I noticed a cluster of whale watching vessels before the orcas. When the pod moved towards the reserve the whale watchers didn’t follow but instead kept their distance and motored ahead to the next point they calculated the pod to be.

Orcas and boaters on the south side of Great Race Rocks

Orcas and boaters on the south side of the island

 

One private boat-owner, however, chased the whales right through the reserve.

 

 

 

Caught on Underwater Camera 2 by Adam Harding

Caught on Underwater Camera 2 by Adam Harding

 

On one of the trips for diesel, Erik also brought his dive gear to clean the Underwater Camera 2.

Elephant Seals, Divers

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On Wednesday afternoon the elephant seal with double green tags 5086/4665 hauled out again on the boat ramp and has remained around the jetty for the past days.  Today I noticed another elephant seal in the South bay with green tag # 6355.  This appears to be the same one that Mike reported in early January. 

Squall has been over by the fog signal the past two days but made her way back towards the flagpole at sunset today.  According to Pam, Squall turned 9 weeks old today.

Today there were two vessels in the reserve. In the morning Pinnacle Scuba Adventures (they have a video with some nice underwater shots on their site) brought a group out and dove near the jetty.  They paid a visit to the underwater camera and gave the lens a wipe, thanks!

In the afternoon a Prince of Whales ecotour vessel visited the reserve while the current was ebbing into a +25 knot W wind, looked like a bumpy wet ride.

 

Green tags 5086/4665

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For the past few days there have been 2 female elephant seals moulting around Great Race.  The first picture was taken on Thursday in the channel between the main island and South Seal Rocks.  At the time I was only able to see her one green tag # 5086.  I have also noticed one of them hauling out in the East Bay.

This morning when I went to launch the whaler she was on the boat ramp and was pretty stubborn about moving out of the way.

I was able to get a closer look at her tail and see a second green tag # 4665.

Visible in these last two photos, one of the tags has become a substrate for gooseneck barnacles.  I appreciate that someone is working to tag and track these animals but I have a hard time believing that these tags aren’t a nuisance to the animals and that over the long distances they travel and hunt these wouldn’t create a noticeable amount of drag and encumbrance.

On Friday afternoon Erik and Laura came out to Race Rocks in second nature with a group of student divers as well as 6 visitors who toured around the island.  Erik cleaned and moved the underwater camera, Pam got a good image capture. There was a dive boat in the reserve this morning.

Elephant Seals

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New elephant seals show up almost daily. Today Mystery is hanging out with a large female, while the teenage male does his best to get out of the way of the Beachmaster. He has some surface wounds indicating his neglect in clearing the path for the big guy. I’ll post some pics tomorrow. I have several student coming for a visit and need to prep the house and launch the boat…

Erik was out yesterday to clean the underwater camera and remove and old fridge. Good to see this place getting cleaner, leaner and greener…