Romanzoffia tracyi
Scientific classification
Family: Boraginaceae (Borage)
Subfamily: Hydrophylloideae (Waterleaf)
Genus: Romanzoffia
Species: R. tracyi (Jepson)
Common name: Tracy’s mistmaiden
General: Perennial herb from well-developed, brown-woolly basal tubers; stems several, ascending, long glandular-hairy, 2-12 cm tall [1].
Overcast. Light to moderate West winds. Force 4. Barometer peaked just above 1015.0 hPa and then started to fall. Forecast for West winds tomorrow. 6 tour boats The second half of the marine science students came out this morning. Because they were a large group it took two boats so both Erik and Chris came out. There was enough water in the morning for the boats to dock next to the jetty to drop the students. The exam has a few stations with tasks and activities that have to be accomplished to answer the questions. There were Elephant seals by the jetty and California sea lions barking on the West side of the island during the entire exam. A few meter sticks were accidentally sacrificed to the current. When they were picked up Erik had to nose Second Nature up to the jetty and the students had to jump on the bow.
Light variable North wind. Overcast to clear skies. Force 0-1
Barometer is on a slow but steady decline. The forecast is for East winds to shift to moderate West this evening as a small low pressure system moves northward.
6 tour boats
DND was blasting this morning. They sent out an email recently warning people about this scheduled munitions testing. There was about 6 blasts in total, all really loud. The Guillemots are startled by the blasts and fly away, but most of the other animals don’t seem to react.
Erik brought out Laura and Anne along with the first half of the marine science students today to do their 3 hour field exam. The weather and elephant seals cooperated nicely. The DND blasting probably didn’t help with the exam stress.
-sanded and painted drywall repair
-attached Whaler VHF speaker to console stand
-greased hardware on windows that open in the Science house
-Worked on SOPs
Clear skies. Light West winds
5 tour boats
6 halibut boats on the edge of the reserve
The Pearson College students left today. And they did a great job cleaning the Science house, which is much appreciated.
I found a Black Oyster Catcher nest today. It is East of the Keeper’s House, down towards the rocky beach. Two eggs.
Patchy clouds. Strong Westerlies, low West swell. Force 5 most of the day.
Barometer on the rise since last night. Forecast is for more strong West.
4 tour botas
2 halibut boats on edge of reserve
1225 fly-over by a small plane
The Elephant seals have officially moved all the way to the other side of the path. They are now next to the water tank shed. Not sure why they decide to move, or how they choose the location, but they are busy creatures in their own way. There are lots of Gull nests taking shape all over the island. No sign yet of any of eggs or nesting though. There are still 3 Canada goose goslings being aggressively guarded by their parents.
Erik dropped off an Advisee group for the weekend.
-Checked battery bank specific gravity
-topped up batteries
-put voltage controller back together
-Ran generator and monitored inverters and battery bank
Cloudy with scattered showers. Strong West wind in the evening.
4 tour boats
I spent the day with Aileen and her advisee group. Because there were 10 students (with all of their associated electronic equipment) the breaker on the inverter to the science house was tripped last night which resulted in a total electrical shut-down of the Science house where everyone was staying. Our system and these old houses are just not meant for that much of a power draw. Because of that little power outage, the morning was spent showing them about the energy and resource systems on Race Rocks, with a strong emphasis on living within reasonable means, especially when in a remote place like this. My solution to the excessive use of power was to only allow them to use 2 plugs in the house to charge computers and phones. I think (hope) it turned into an unexpected team building exercise where they had to charge things minimally and barter for plug-time. Either way, it meant that we didn’t have any more power issues for the rest of their stay and it is something that I will implement for future groups.
I counted 13 Elephant seals on Middle rock. They return to Race Rocks for a few months in Spring to moult. Although they look absolutely terrible when they are moulting, it is a natural process that they undergo every year.
Cloudy with scattered showers. Rain this evening. Moderate East wind this morning that switched to light West late this afternoon.
PC students were back out again today with Anne to do their transect sampling lab.
Erik and I did a short dive to clean the diatom film off of the underwater camera.
Rain and Moderate West wind yesterday. Blowing hard West overnight and gusting 40+ kts. Clear today with a solid West Gale blowing.
Alex left Race Rocks on Saturday. He picked me up in the Whaler and we had a few hours of overlap to go over the changes to the systems, etc. He left when Erik came to pick up the PC Students that spent Project Week out here.
I spent yesterday settling in and puttering. Alex left the Reserve in great shape. Spring shift will be all about birds. There are lot’s of Bald eagles siting all over the island, often very close to the Keeper’s House. They are impressively large birds when you see them up close. Th Canada Geese are pairing up and honking and fighting. Mating Canada Geese are pretty terrifying creatures. In terms of sharing the island, I think I prefer the Fall Sea lions, who despite their noise and smell, are quite charismatic and fun to watch, they also don’t rush you when you’re back is turned. There is a pair of geese trying to make a nest under the South porch which makes getting firewood and going to the compost a bit nerve wracking. I will pile some wood down there and hope it deters them.
A pod of Orcas came through the reserve on Sunday. Adults and juveniles. They hung out on the East side and harassed the Sea lions on the South Rocks. A friend of mine out sailing said that they were transients, but I’m not sure. I guess I’ll have too look up how to tell the groups apart. I noticed the whales because an eco-tour boat was watching them. The boat kept its distance and idled respectfully at the edge of the Reserve. It is nice to see the tour boat operators voluntarily following the regulations set up by the Pacific Whale Watch Association for the Race Rocks Ecological Reserve where “Vessels will remain outside all of the Go Slow Zone whenever Resident, Transient or Off Shore Killer Whales are present in the Go Slow Zone.” See this link for more information about whale watching within the Reserve.
-cleared kitchen window weep holes to hopefully help with the leak issue
-dug a drainage ditch along North side of Student house
Despite the difficulties of dealing with the pup this week it has been a pleasure to have a group of 5 Pearson College students out here for project week. The students have been working on some creative projects, have helped with daily tasks of seawater measurements and boat counts and have helped with a few projects including moving driftwood, counting animals in the reserve, running the fire pump, breaking down and de-nailing crate wood, pumping diesel for the furnaces, and assisting with the pup rescue. We have been fortunate to have some really nice weather so they have spent lots of time outside appreciating this special place.
Animal Census-March 11
california sea lions: 7
stellar sea lions: 25
harbour seals: 25
elephant seal: 1
gulls: 107
cormorants: 59
Bl turnstone: 20
canada goose: 18
eagles: 3
Harlequin ducks: 10
Pigeon Guillemots: 23
A week ago we asked Paul Cotrell, the Pacific Marine Mammal Coordinator of Fisheries and Oceans Canada to assist us in starting a program of annual elephant seal pup tagging by tagging this years elephant seal pup born on January 14.
This morning Erik Schauff drove the college boat Second Nature out to the Ecological Reserve to transport Paul Cotrell, Sheena Majewski from PBS in Nanaimo and Mya Cormie from the Victoria DFO office. Also on board were biology faculty member Ann Stewart, as well as Barry Herring and myself
We joined Alex Fletcher and Virginie Lavalie , Ecoguardians at the ecological reserve in helping with the tagging process. We had planned to do this earlier in the week but the East winds were still blowing. As it was we hit a perfectly calm day today.
The pup was on the grass by the weather instrument and was somewhat bigger than we had estimated, probably 250-300 pounds.
Our first attempts to get it on a weighing platform failed as the pup was just too large and difficult to control. Paul decided in order to avoid any further stress, to just do the tagging. Alex held the rear flippers and Sheena used a tagging tool to insert the tags into the webbing of each of the rear flippers.
Tag on rear flipper of elephant seal pup
A set of turquoise tags numbered F075 and F076, with numbers facing outside were added to the each of the rear flippers. The colour of the tags is important because each research program using tagging has to use unique identifiable colours and numbers.
The first elephant seal to be born on Great Race Rocks in 2009, was tagged with red tags by NOAA scientists when it came ashore in Port Angeles.
Paul Cotrell telling Pearson College students about the hazards of marine mammal tagging.
Pup moving around the following day
A group of Anne’s students came out from Pearson College to observe the newly tagged pup, it being the first one tagged in Canada.
Initially after tagging, the pup moved off about 6 metres and settled down in a grassy area.
Pup settled down on the lawn the next morning.
The next morning, the pup had returned to the same spot where he had been tagged. He moved around a short distance during the day.
Pam Birley from England also took some pictures of the process using camera and has posted these on her Flickr site