I received this e-mail and images this afternoon from our viewer in England, Pam Birley. She took them using the remote camera 5 and writes: “I watched this bird for about an hour today !!! I think it may be a juvenile Pacific Coast Peregrine Falcon. According to Sibley they are darker feathered with mustache merging on head to form a dark helmet.
See Peregrine Falcons in the Race Rocks Taxonomy
See all the posts on Peregrine falcons observed at Race Rocks
Ann Stewart, Race Rocks Ecoguardian, took these pictures of the American goldfinch ( Spinus tristis) in its winter plumage and posted them in her log of today’s date. This is the first record for this species on Race Rocks The brown nape and bright colours suggest that it is a male. This is at the extreme northern range for these birds at this time of year. Race Rocks serves as a valuable stopover for the migration of many birds, so we assume it was on its way across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Fringillidae
Genus: Spinus
Species: S. tristis
Spinus tristis (Linnaeus, 1758)
Other Members of the Class Aves at Race Rocks.
 Return to the Race Rocks Taxonomyand Image File |
 The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams. |
6-spot the harbour seal observed by Pam Birley on the rock by the jetty October 9, 2015
A record for long term observation has occurred with Pam Birley of Lesteshiire England observing over a period of 7 years a certain harbour seal she named 6-spot because of the distinctive markings. Oddly enough she often gets an image of it from the remote camera 5 in the fall as it lies on the same flat rock near the Jetty. You can see some of her other observations of it at https://www.racerocks.ca/pam-birley-photo-records/
Pam sent the picture with the note: “Hi Garry, YES….it is 6-spot !!!! I got a good clear view this morning as it lay basking below Cam 5. Here is a picture. First seen 2008 I believe, that makes it seven years !!! I love it !!!! Pam
Courtney providing the transportation, along with Garry Fletcher took two sets of lighthouse keeper’s family members, the Robert Lundy Family and a branch of the (first light keeper ) George N.Davies family for a prearranged visit to Race Rocks today. They left archival documents and photos; and are sending more to add to the web pages;
Some “patriotic” elephant seals viewed from Camera1 on the top of the lighthouse tower.
The census data taken by the Ecoguardians shows an ever-increasing population increase at the Race Rocks Ecological reserve. This year we have seen the highest population recorded here.
Also see the APRIL 23 post with graphs on Whale Observations from Race Rocks 2009-2014.
I believe that the increasing frequency in recent years in the number of humpback whales observed in the area which will be affected by increased tanker traffic from the Kinder Morgan/ TMX project has not been taken into account In the Consultant’s report issued today “ Quantitative Assessment of Increased Potential for Marine Mammal-Vessel Interactions from the Trans Mountain Expansion Project TRANS MOUNTAIN PIPELINE ULC TRANS MOUNTAIN EXPANSION PROJECT –-Prepared by: Stantec Consulting Ltd. 500 – 4730 Kingsway Burnaby, BC, V5H 0C6 Ph.: (604) 436-3014,
Quoted from the report :
“While the BC CSN data includes numerous opportunistic sightings of humpback whales in the study area over the course of the last four decades, the majority of the Marine RSA is generally not recognized as a humpback whale hotspot, although the western extent just overlaps with the eastern-most extent of humpback whale critical habitat –(Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2013a). As such, and since actual humpback whale density values for the Marine RSA (Regional Study Area) do not exist, this species was assigned a density according to the lowest density observed for humpback whales during the surveys reported on in Best and Halpin (2011) elsewhere in BC ((Williams and Thomas 2007) did not observe any humpback whales during their summer 2004 survey in this area) This value corresponds to roughly 10 whales distributed across the majority of the Marine RSA
——As a result, humpback whales were assigned a proportion of time in the study area of 0.17 (i.e., two months of the year) based on the largest concentration of sightings from the BC CSN data (British Columbia Cetacean Sightings Network 2013)”
Here is a good example, in my opinion, of how a decision having long term implications regarding the welfare of a species recovering from near extinction may be completely misdirected if based only on a consultants interpretation of officially published scientific resources which can quickly become dated.
G.Fletcher
Pearson College students Annabelle, Chloé, Hanne, Malou, Michael and spend time on their project week at Race Rocks in March of 2015. They produced this PowerPoint presentation to document their time there:
A sampling of their photographs below:
A slide show made by Lester Pearson College students who spent their project week at Race Rocks Ecological Reserve in March 2015
Annabelle, Chloé, Hanne, Malou, Michael and Sibia
and Thanks to Chris and Anne
These regulations may be viewed at:
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-93-56/FullText.html
Note: We cannot find any reference to the “amendments about marine mammal viewing ” introduced in 2003 and 2013. See https://www.racerocks.ca/2013/01/31/dfo-marine-mammal-viewing-regulations/
Our regular viewer on the remote cameras from England, Pam Birley sent this set of images she had taken today on camera 1 of a Sea Otter at Race Rocks.
Click the sea otter tag below for other observations of sea otters here.
