Category Archives: ER Warden Report

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:

 

Andrew and Kathleen Ritchie, Lightkeepers 1933-1940

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In the 1921 Canadian Census, Andrew Ritchie (21)  is listed as living in West Vancouver with his parents David and Christina,  and two sisters, Helen (15) and Annie (23) . They had migrated from Scotland in 1911 as passengers aboard the *”Saturnia”.  On November 11 of 1931 Andrew married Mary Kathleen Neave in West Vancouver. They had no children.

Joan Booth - c1948

Joan Booth, niece of Andrew and Kathleen Ritchie at East Point light station on Saturna island, 1948.

In January 2014 I received a letter from Mark Knudson, a great nephew of the Ritchies.  He said: “Andrew was my mother’s Uncle and was a lighthouse keeper.

She used to visit him in summer. I have attached a photo from about 1948 showing her in front of the foghorn tower at East Point (Saturna Island.)

Andrew Ritchie and his wife moved to Saturna Island in the fall of 1940, after being at Race Rocks Light station for 7 years. They retired on Saturna Island and were still living there as of the 1963 voters list.

 

Andrew Ritchie - c1912

 

Also attached is a photo of Andrew Ritchie as a 12 year old. He was born in Scotland in 1900 and immigrated with his family around 1911 . He was married to Mary Kathleen Neeve, He died in Saanichton (Victoria)  Aug.26, 1988.

 

ritchie

 

During the Second World War, Andrew and Mary Kathleen Ritchie (on the left) were photographed by Francis Clements at Race Rocks with some visitors from Vancouver Island (perhaps parents? ) .

 

I received the following  letter and the pictures  from Francis Clements of Calgary, Alberta in about 2003.  Francis tells of his posting to Race Rocks in 1939 when he was stationed with five other sailors at the “War Signal Station”. Our sincere thanks to Francis for this wonderful piece of history! Click on his pictures below.

fclementsletter*

Saturnia

This ship was  built by Charles Connell & Company, Glasgow, Scotland, 1910. 8611 gross tons; 456 (bp) feet long; 55 feet wide. Steam triple expansion engines, twin screw.  Service speed 14 knots.  1250 passengers ( 50 first class, 1200 third class ).

Built for Donaldson Line, British flag, in 1910 and named Saturnia. Glasgow-Montreal service. Scrapped in Italy in 1928.

Sea Lion Notes from Race Rocks

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ER Warden’s Report by G. Fletcher.

On December 28, 2013  I was out at Race Rocks doing the Christmas Bird Count. While there I made several observations concerning the Northern and California Sea lions. There are only a few California sea lions left after the heavy influx of the fall. The number of Northerns on the South island is still fairly high ( over 100)

sealionhouse On the  November 28 log there were still 479 Stellars and 555 Californias. This image taken in the fall, shows how much they came up near the houses where there wasn’t an electric fence to repel them:

The vegetation of the areas on both sides of the island were heavily impacted by the sea lions this fall.  In the following images those areas that are now brown are  normally green.

sealionhauloutarea

North East of Ecoguardian’s residence

2013-12-28sealionsoilm

South of the Marine Education House

I observed from the tower an unusual behaviour shown in the image below. It is not unusual in that the California Sea Lions are rafting. What is unusual is that Northern sea lions flank them on both sides without having their fins raised out of the water.

2013-12-28raftsealionm

Be sure to click for a large image of sea lion rafting

 

Christmas Bird Count at RR 2013

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Also-Warden’s Report for Dec 28, 2013.
Link to the Index for the past records of the Christmas Bird Counts

2013-12-28songsavan

Song Sparow on the left and Savannah Sparrow on the right of this lichen covered log on the West side of Great race Rocks..

Ecoguardian Alex Fletcher picked up Val George and myself from the Pearson College docks mid- morning and we started our count by water in Pedder Bay, then across Rocky Point, through Eemdyck Channel and then across Race Passage to Race Rocks via West Rocks and Middle Rocks. The following includes only the Race Rocks portion of the census:

Observers:  Val George, Garry Fletcher and Alex Fletcher

2013  Christmas Bird Count – Summary      Date ___Dec28___Area or Sub-Area__Race Rocks Ecological Reserve__
Observers (in field)—3 Leader Garry Fletcher
Temp—-6 Wind NE,  3.5km Time Start__10:30___a.m.   Finish___12:00__a.m.
A.M. Clear,calm partly cloudy Moving water open ocean around
for your entire count team # hours (on foot) 1.5 distance (on foot) .35km, and top of tower
Northwestern Crow 2
Common Raven 2
Thayer’s Gull 200
Canada Goose 6
Black Oystercatcher 30
Black Turnstone 14
Harlequin Duck 10
Bufflehead 8
 Song Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 1
Glaucous-winged Gull 20
 Common Murre 4
Pacific Loon 2
Common Loon 1
Brandt’s Cormorant 80
Double-crested Cormorant 120
Pelagic Cormorant 17
Bald Eagle  (adult) 1
Bald Eagle
(immature		 7
Total Number of Birds 528
Total Number of Species 17

Pam Birley’s Images of Race Rocks 2004-2013

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newportOn this page are links to the monthly photo diaries taken on the remote cameras at Race Rocks from 2004 to 2013  by the late Pam Birley of Leicestershire England These albums were due to her almost daily commitment for a decade.  She produced a valuable record of events with her unique screen captures from Camera 5 , Camera 1 and the underwater Camera 2.

​

September, 2010 October, 2010 November,2010 December 2010
May, 2010 June 2010 July 2010 August 2010
January, 2010 February, 2010 March 2010 April 2010
September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December, 2009
May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009
January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009
December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008
August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008
January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008
January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007
May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007
September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 Dec. 2007
The full collection of previous monthly Race Rocks albums done by Pam Birley November 2004 to October 07 is now at: http://tinyurl.com/2adrsp

One of Pams first submissions to us was in this set of images of eagle predation in 2004

 

 

Bald Eagles in the Rain

 

 

 

 

Bad Hair Day for the Eagles

 

 

 

 

Pams images of  Snowy Owls were a first for Race Rocks

 

 

Feature Article on Pam Birley: From:  TheThunderbird.ca News, analysis and commentary by UBC Journalism students Former Pearson College student Marc-Fawcett-Atkinson and Annie Rueter have published the following article in  about our most consistent contributor to the website, Pam Birley of Leicester England. B.C. wildlife 

 

Live Wildlife for your Living Room
ref: Anderson, Charlie,
The Province, Vancouver, B.C. ( Sunday, Nov.21, 2004
“Long Distance Monitoring, the effective Citizen Science of Pam Birley” has been has been published on page 10 of the December 2010 Issue of the Friends of Ecological Reserves log.

Pam and Dennis  Birley vist Race Rocks in 2008

 

 

This link brings up all the posts involving Pam Birley

Sealion infusion

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Wardens’s report by Garry Fletcher contd.

In early morning calm –and clear with no wind– by 1115 hrs it was pouring rain. Predictable from the look of the barometer . The weather fluctuated all day from rain to sun with a rainbow and back to rain. Sea lion numbers are still building and one more elephant seal joined the elephant seal group  by the boathouse last night . So this is what it looked and sounded like this morning :

Click for a video of sites and sounds of the sealions

Click for a video of sites and sounds of the sealions

Several branded sealions here today:

At this time of year there are some non-breeding plumage Heermann’s gulls that one can pick out among the large gull population .

And a gallery of some of the other bird-life on the island, some migrating through.

9 whalewatching boats through the reserve this morning.  Swells and the approaching storm held them off in the afternoon.

The panoramas below were taken in the last two days:

southislandpanosept2113a

Gulls on the south islands in the morning. Note a mix of California, Glaucous-winged   and Heermann’s Gulls.

swPanosept2213a

Glaucous-winged, California,   and a few  Heermann’s Gulls and sea lions on the south-west corner of the island

southsidepanosept2213a

The south side of Great Race Rock island

West side of the docks--note electric fence installed to keep the sealions off the docks.

West side of the docks–note electric fence installed to keep the sealions off the docks.

East side of jetty

East side of jetty

The east shore of Race Rocks with California and Northern Sea lions.

The east shore of Race Rocks with California and Northern Sea lions.

On Sunday morning, the Davis weather instrument wasn’t working. On checking, I found that the UPC powerbackup was malfunctioning–will return it to the college IT dept.  Weather is back on now.

Whale watchers abundant today

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Wardens’s report by Garry Fletcher: Chris drove me out this morning to Race Rocks to relieve Courtney our Ecoguardian for the weekend –a foggy start but it cleared off by noon  with a shower in the afternoon. Up the tower at 11:30 for census and the daily  boat survey for DFO. Census from tower at 1150hrs. Harbour seals : 22 SE onshore, 39 SW :  total  61 Elephant Seals: 10 in a cluster behind boathouse: total 10. California Sea Lions 77 south side, 80 on East shore , 40 on NE , viewed from Docks and helipad to get ones not visible from tower: from docks w side 40, East 72, west shore tidepools: 53 :  total 362. Northern Sea lions: middle rock 170, E side docks 30, N rock 50 : total 250

elesealsept2113

2-3  year old ??- male and female elephant seals by the boathouse

2northernssept2113

Northern Sealions near the winch house, note  small juvenile to the right.

The distribution in the late afternoon changed, with more sealions of both species moving up onto the main  island covering the yard to the North west which is now completely devoid of vegetation.

  electfence In order to curb damage to the grounds, (and pipes and conduits,)  from the sealions this year, we are restricting the movement up onto the center of the island. A network of electrical tape has been installed and it appears to be effective so far.sept2113electfence

Several branded sealions were on the island today, this one 8586 was easist to determine.

Several branded sealions were on the island today, this one 8586 was easiest to identify.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For other branding records see: https://www.racerocks.ca/race-rocks-animals-plants/marine-mammal-tracking/

 

carcassept2113I was surprised by the number of dead juvenile seagull carcases  around the island. many were young that were probably attacked by other adults when out of nesting territories , the highest count was on the ledge  below Camera5 . Most deaths occurred during the late summer.  Approx count 20.

harbsealsept2113

Who me?

orca1sept2113Twice today a pod of Orca, ( about 6 ?) traveled through the reserve. whale watchers numbered up to 10 boats averaging 15-20  people per boat.  They were observant about remaining outside the reserve when the whales were inside reserve boundaries, but with a ring of whale-watching boats around the group when they were out in Race Passage, it did not look like the whales were getting much freedom. I believe the Orca pod was feeding on fish because there were many seals and sea lions in the water and none were attacked. At least 20 whale-watching boats were through the reserve today.

whaleboatssept2113

Whale-watching boats waiting for the whales at the east side of the reserve.

 

pigguileggssept2113

Below the cliff from camera 5 is a space behind some rocks with a failed nest of a pigeon guillemot

At the northeast corner of the helipad I noticed a large amount of chevrons from chiton shells, washed out from guano deposits from over the summer. It seemed to be a very dense concentration??

newweather1 Environment Canada has over the summer installed new weather sensors on top of the tower at Race Rocks. Now in addition to wind speed and direction, humidity, temperature, dew point and barometric pressure  are recorded. This provides an interesting comparison with the data from the  ground level recorded by our Davis weather instrument: They may be accessed here: Env Canada Weather

 

 

 

A bit of History:
One can often encounter human-made artifacts on the islands which don’t have an obvious explanation: On the east side of the tower for instance is this  “sidewalk to nowhere”.  Trev Anderson told me about the wooden blacksmith shop that was located in that spot until it was demolished in the late 1960’s.

 

The sidewalk to nowhere…

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A bit of History:
One can often encounter human-made artifacts on the islands which don’t have an obvious explanation: On the east side of the tower for instance is this  “sidewalk to nowhere”.  Trev Anderson told me about the wooden blacksmith shop that was located in that spot until it was demolished in the late 1960’s.

Photos from the Remote Cameras

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I was just looking at the recent postings on the Flickr site of Pam Birley of the UK. Pam does an excellent job of recording the events at Race Rocks on almost a daily basis using our remote controlled cameras.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66339356@N00/sets/72157632533500094/page3/

We now have photographic records of hers dating back to November of 2007

A continuous record such as this of the seasonal changes in wildlife over several years on an Ecological Reserve is a rare and valued asset. Thanks  Pam!