Category Archives: weather notes

Census, rain and whales

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NW
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a bit of boat traffic, most of it being whale watching tours
  • Guy came by with a couple more boat loads of students to give them a tour around the island

Maintenance

  •  Didn’t have to do any pressure washing today thanks to the rain although I did have to run the generator a bit to make up for not getting any solar energy today

Ecological

  • An elephant seal showed up yesterday and she is still around today, so thats exciting
  • also there have been a few humpback whale sightings and Guy said he saw some killer whales on the way over here but I missed them unfortunately
  • plenty of sea lions, seems like there is more everyday
  • not as many gulls as last week and I haven’t seen any cormorants on the outer rocks today

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 132
  • california sea lions – 314
  • harbour seals – 94
  • gulls – 261
  • elephant seals – 1 female
  • black turnstones – 12
  • fox sparrows – 2

New Students

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a bit of boat traffic, many ecotours, fishing boats and sailboats
  • Guy brought by a couple boat loads of the new first year students, as he did yesterday so we could give them a little tour of Race Rocks, its great when the students get to come out here and see another aspect of Pearson College, they don’t come out here that often and you can’t see it from the college

Maintenance

  • having some camera issues lately, will need to order a new SD card for the Race Rocks camera and the one in personal camera is not cooperating either, but hopefully we will be able to get more photos up soon

Ecological

  • still around 300 sea lion, mostly californias around the island.
  • plenty of harbour seals on the outer rocks, a few on the main island
  • also a few whale sightings, I saw two humpbacks by north rock yesterday morning and Guy said he also saw killer whales near there when he came he around 9:30am yesterday.
  • Also one of the younger seagulls I posted a photo of last week is dead, not quite sure what happened, just its body by the pathway
  • there are still about 4 of the younger ones all together

Its been an eventful week and hopefully I can start taking pictures again soon :)

Census and Visitors

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-25 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a bit of boat traffic, most of it being whale watching tours
  • Guy, Greg and Mike came by today to take the old washer and dryer in for repairs

Maintenance

  • did some pressure washing today, but will probably do more of the solar panels tomorrow, need to fuel up the pressure washer first

Ecological

  • Quite a few sea lions, and harbour seals around
  • Birds consist of seagulls and cormorants, haven’t seen any eagles or harlequinns around, there aren’t even any geese here today
  • it looks like one of the young seagulls, there are still about 7 maybe 9 around of the really young ones, but it looks like one of them was pecked at around its head

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 104
  • california sea lions – 198
  • harbour seals – 55
  • gulls – 289
  • cormorants – 26

I’m Back

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 miles
  • Wind: 15-25 kn SW
  • Sky: slightly hazy/partly cloudy
  • Water: a bit choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Plenty of ecotours, whalewatchers around today, by the way they were circling the kelp patch I assume the otter was there

Island maintenance

  • had to run the generator for a few hours today because there was not a lot of sunlight
  • also cleaned off the camera by the helicopter pad, received a message saying the cameras were getting difficult to see through

Bird notes

  • Nice to see a few younger seagulls around, they were already a decent size and lost their baby feathers by the time I got here last september

Marine mammals

  • Plenty of sea lions already on the main island, will need to put up a fence soon to keep them away from important areas, such as the generator room, don’t want to run into them if I need to get to the generator

A foggy 48 hours

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Weather

  • Visibility: <1 mile
  • Wind: 20-30 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Ripply
  • The island has been shrouded in dense fog for the last 48 hours and the fog horn has been going off continuously

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • The fog has reduced the number of whale watching boats in the area, or at least I cannot see many due to the fog.

Marine mammals

  • The harbour seals have really taken to liking the little rocky beach on the southeast side of the island. These days you can spot about 20 of them on the rocks there, including the pups – although I have only seen one pup over the last few days, not sure where the second one went.

Southeast winds, more work on the electric grid and ollie!

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 15-20 SE in the morning, 5-10 N in the evening (quite unusual)
  • Sky: partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Kyle again brought several technicians from PTTP to do further work on the energy systems. They were able to connect the system to the internet which now allows them to remotely monitor solar input and usage. I also helped them lift the new batteries off the floor and place them on to an insulated rack.
  • Noticed an ecotour boat from the United States going around the reserve, and I’ve never seen this boat before. Maybe it was a 4th of July special?

Birds

  • Most seagull eggs have hatched, but some still remain whole. The seagulls are extremely aggressive now, and hard hats are a must for any visitors at this point.
  • A couple of juvenile bald eagles are making the rounds on the island – I initially mistook them for golden eagles, but Kyle explained they were simply juveniles.

Marine mammals

  • Kyle and I went to grab some photos of Ollie the sea otter that lives in a kelp patch near turbine rock.
  • We also spotted a humpack’s blow but by the time we got close it was gone.

Boating violations and power trouble

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-10 W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors

  • The calm weather attracted several ecotour boats as well as many private boats
  • I witnessed several boating violations:
    • 2 marina boats were getting really close to the sea lions. I had to call the marina and report the boats.
    • A private small boat tried to enter the ramp area near the jetty. I went up to the jetty and asked them to reverse out of that area.
    • A whale watching boat almost entered the lighthouse island and the south islands, but stopped short when I went outside and made myself visible.

Technical

  • Over the last 48 hours, for some reason, the batteries were draining faster than usual and even running the generator for 2+ hours daily wasn’t enough. This morning the batteries came to a critical low of 18%. I got in touch with Guy over IM and we troubleshooted the cause to be excess power consumption from the student house. After closing a few switches and unplugging some machines, I ran the generator for 4 hours and was able to bring the batteries back up to 100%. The bright sun all day today definitely also helped juice the batteries up faster.

Ecological

  • Noticed several more seagull eggs today. None hatched so far
  • Fewer elephant seals on the shore today

Census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-35 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • not much boat traffic today, its been pretty windy

Ecological

  • less elephant seals
  • also less sea lions

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 11
  • california sea lions – 15
  • elephant seals – 7 female, 1 male
  • gulls – 180
  • pigeon guillemots – 98
  • oyster catchers – 14
  • geese – 16
  • eagles – 2

Wednesday

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-35 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy and Foggy
  • Water: Waves 0-1 metre

Boats/Visitors

  • a few ecotours went by today but not many, due to the wind and fog

Ecological

  • a dozen elephant seals around today, not a lot of sea lions
  • I think all the goose eggs have been successfully addled, I have not seen any goslings around
  • And no seagulls eggs yet but the nests are pretty clear and they will probably start laying eggs soon