Wednesday June 5/13
Day two: Fog and moderate winds early in the morning. A good part of the morning was spent cleaning the Solar panels on the roof of the Energy building of all the accumulated bird guano. I took note of the power output pre-cleaning : 650W; it jumped to 980W after being cleaned.
One pleasure boat in the Reserve this morning 0945hrs
We were visited by BC Parks’ new Area Supervisor to familiarise herself with the site and the Race Rocks File; and to meet the crew.
And more beautiful than ever!
Bertha and gang avoiding the strong Westerlies
Bertha’s Scar
This morning 5 elephant seals were on the island, probably seeking some degree of shelter from the 35 knot Westerly wind that has been blowing all day. 4 are juveniles, but in the middle of the pile lies Bertha looking sleek and glossy-brown. She is easily identified by the large scar on her chest and her clouded left eye. Last year she arrived on Great Race on April 15th. I think she has been in the reserve for a little while now but I had not been able to identify her while she rested on Middle Rocks.
Biding their time…
We appear to have about 300 Glaucous-winged Gulls on the island this spring. My estimate is that there are about 25% fewer individuals than last spring, when I counted about 200 breeding pairs. Other animals noted in the past few days have been several Dunlins, a small flock of Barn Swallows, a Whimbrel and what resembled a Solitary Sandpiper. I also saw for the first time a Mink (Mustela Vison) on Great Race; quite a swim for the little athlete!
Erik and I did an oil and filter change on the generator. Hopefully it will be the last one and we will soon be able to afford to install a wind generator to provide the last 20% of energy we require. We run the generator about 2.5 hours a day this time of year.
We had 3 groups of student this month, 2 roofers, 3 techs from Environment Canada, and several college staff. Tour boats and fisherfolk are being seen more regularly in the reserve as the nicer weather begins. We had to ask one group of fishers to pull their lines and leave the Reserve. Infractions are almost always due to ignorance and I am lobbying the government to post a few signs which, unattractive as they may be, could go a long way towards ameliorating those infractions.
Birdyfull Sunset
The last week has been spent hauling old roof shingles across the island to the dock, and loading them onto a boat to be disposed of on shore. Yesterday Erik and I changed the oil and filters in the main generator. I ran the fire-pump and filled the cistern, started painting exterior wood, turned the compost, and cleaned the solar panels.
I returned to the island on March 26 after spending about a week off island. While I was away a 55+ knot wind hit the island. The Guest house has been losing shingles all winter, this time it took a whole section of the roofing and tar paper off and blew it all over the island. The guardian said he heard pieces hitting the main house. A roofing crew has been out here each day since Tuesday and have nearly finished installing a new metal roof. There has also been two guys working on installing new vinyl floors in the guest house.
After a few weeks of waiting for the shipment to arrive, we were finally able to bring the new flooring for the Science Centre out to Race Rocks. In the process of loading the packages from the truck to the boat at the Pearson College maintenance dock one of the wheel barrels got out of hand and dumped some of the floor into the ocean. With the aid of an old dry suit, my friend Marc was able to retrieve them. We gave them a fresh water rinse and lay them out to dry. Once at Race Rocks we used the crane to offload the flooring to the crane deck and then wheel-barrelled them to the science centre. It took two boat trips and most of the day to get all the flooring out, luckily the weather was calm and sunny.
There have been 6 Pearson College students staying at Race Rocks this past week for Project Week. They have been helping out with various projects on the island including scrubbing algae off of the siding of the buildings and painting baseboard trim for the guest house. On Friday Garry Fletcher visited the island to talk with students about history and biology.
During their stay there have been some stormy days with wind speeds gusting over 40 knots from the West.
Erik was out today to help fix the crane and offload garbage from removing old carpet and linoleum from the guest house. The cable had come off the upper pulley so Erik climbed the boom to get it properly seated again while i belayed him off the diesel transfer tank.
Once fixed we were able to offload the two bulk bags and sling load onto Second Nature while at a low tide of 5.6 feet. I went off island to unload the waste from the boat into a dump bin on campus.
Winch house and sling load. Image captured from web cam (5) by Garry.
Image capture from tower web cam by Garry
Bald Eagle on Gosling Carcass
The nesting gulls continue their vigil over their eggs. Oystercatcher couples furtively watch over their scrapes located just above the high-tide line, while Pigeon Guillemots incubate their eggs within the cracks and fissures of the rocks. Ironically the blasted rock, remnant of Coast Guard efforts to create more level terrain has provided habitat for them! Caspian Terns remain in the area but have not been noticed to land on the island. Cormorant are seen in the local waters but none appear to be nesting on the island this year.
Canada Geese
This season 4 pairs of Canada Geese hatched 20 goslings; a concern for us as this species that is not native to the West Coast can be quite destructive to some habitats. So far though they have had little effect on the grass (most of which is also introduced), and to date 10 of the goslings have been predated by eagles and ravens.
The West wind has stopped for a couple of days; a big relief and an opportunity to do some work that requires still air. Climbing ladders and cleaning the tower camera for example. I think we managed to solve the problem of intermittent outages of Camera 5 as well.
SIx Pack Abs 6397 male
Juvenile Male and lighthouse
There has been a bit of a gender shuffle in the local elephant seal population. Only one female remains, finishing up her moult but several young males have appeared in their stead.
Chunk Beginning to Moult
This corresponds to what is reported in the literature. Misery has just the slightest pelage loss while Chunk is much further advanced…
Metallic Coast Guard debris
I have been removing copper and lead debris from the foreshore and intertidal zone where the Coast Guard dumped them many years ago. Ignorance led to many unsound practices in the years proceeding the new environmental ethos. Both lead and copper are biocides and should not be left to leach into the beach and water.
The big boss is back. Misery (Mystery as I like to call him) has returned to the island and has been snoozing and rolling his generous bulk around the grassy areas. He appears to have gained 100 kgs or more in his time away. Wherever they are going after their onshore fasting, and it can’t be too far, the seals appear to have no problem finding abundant food resources. Fortunate for them that their prey is at a depth most predators can’t reach, nor is that prey (squids, skates, rays and some crustaceans) commercially hunted. Elephant seals appear to love grass, which is unusual as most of the places they live don’t have any vegetation. But their pleasure is apparent to anyone who watches them. Yesterday there were 10 individuals here, a new record.
The younger bull Chunk (named for the hideous propeller scars on his back) stays out of the way but Misery seems less aggressive without any potentially fertile females around. A new juvenile with the tag 6355 showed up today.
It is hard to tell if the oystercatchers have laid their eggs yet because they are so secretive about their nests, and use very vocal and visual threat displays to distract would be predators and naturalists. Normally 2 to 3 eggs are laid in this nest, these are very hard and can even survive being submerged by a high tide or very high water levels. Incubation takes around 26–28 days. The chicks are capable of leaving the nest after one day. I once witness an acquaintance of mine accidentally step on an oystercatcher nest and crush an egg. He was devastated but not as much as the bird. She clearly knew we were responsible and proceeded to fly after us carrying shards of egg in her beak and screaming what I took to be obscenities at us. I don’t blame her at all. Remarkably she repeatedly flew ahead of us with the broken egg, landed on the beach and vocalized, until our guilt forced us to flee the island. That bird recognized cause and effect!
Aneri and Sahar are staying here for a few days and they have been great company. They are so much more consciously evolved than my generation was at that age and they give me hope that many of the antiquated paradigms of our culture will go extinct and we can progress to 21st century thinking to solve 21st century problems. I shall miss them when they leave tomorrow. They have helped me prop up some of the solar panels, washed windows, swept walks, and made some tasty brownies!