Morning Weather: winds West 6kts, seas Rppl, Fog all around
Chris off station between 1100-1730hrs
marine traffic: eco-tour boats: 3
marina mammal count: west rock: 4 sealions , 3 seals, middle rocks: 142 sealions, 52 seals, north rock: 42 seals, Great Race Rocks (including east islets): 350 sealions, 65 seals
solar panels cleaned.
We’ve had the most fog of the summer yesterday and this morning, so thick the shoreline isn’t visible from the tower at points. The fog yesterday didn’t clear until late evening.
The lighthouse tower
The gull chicks are just starting to fly, although there have been some later hatchings this year too. The parent gulls have been very protective and aggressive. When young chicks wander close to another nest, mothers attack the chick or its parent gull. There have been at least four chick casualties this season because of this. These two chicks, pictured below, discovered the protected corner of the boathouse just before I was about to paint the floor. Luckily their squawking parents were close by and I was able to help them on their way.
Glaucous-winged gull chicks in the boathouse
A group of five stellar sea lions arrived on West Race Rocks and the southern rocks this past weekend. Only one California is here now that has been here for a few weeks now. Chunk, however, left the island last week and has not returned, leaving Misery as our only elephant seal at the moment.
Rear view of Chunk, the day before his departure
Typical June day in BC
It always surprises me how long it takes for “summer” weather to arrive in BC. Today it is overcast, blowing 30 with driving rain, and 11 degrees (which feels like 7 with the wind chill). For Race Rocks weather records see this link.
A very buoyant Harbour Seal
3 male elephant seals and I are the only mammals on Great Race Island but this big female Harbour Seal calmly shared a lovely sunset with me at the sea side…
Yoga E-seal
On a nice afternoon a few days ago Chunk was showing his flexibility by doing backbends and chewing on his hind-flippers.
Seal Salutation
Yesterday I spotted 2 Bald Eagles raiding gull nests. I had never seen this before.
Wary Allies
And finally this interesting shot! Nesting Gull and Tower.
morning weather: wind W 15kts sea 1ft Chop Sky clear
Out of curiosity I have been looking at the solar panels output throughout the day. With a clear sky at 1340hrs we were producing 2410 Watts and adding charge to the batteries after accounting for the island load.
1440hrs Float plane low overflight. Likely Fisheries observers; I thought I recognized the plane from past years.
Started work on cleaning and lubrication of the boat cradle wheels.
winds up in the evening to 40kts
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 few days have seen many extremes in weather, from 50 knot Westerlies with hail to gorgeous, clear, sunny and warm afternoons. I enjoy watching the squall fronts marching up the Juan de Fuca Strait, passing over me, and then moving on to affect Victoria.
We were visited by a red-tailed hawk a few days ago. I didn’t observe it preying upon anything; the gulls are a bit too big for it to take on I think….
There are about 15 Elephant Seals in the reserve at this time, mostly juveniles. 3 of them are using Great Race as their haul-out while the others are on Middle Rock and can be observed using the live webcams: http://www.racerocks.com/racerock/video1.htm
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.
