Category Archives: weather notes

Extreme Tides & Extraordinary Critters

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 10-14 miles
  • Wind: 10-20 knots
  • Sky: Slightly cloudy clearing to sunny and clear
  • Water: rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Yesterday there were 20+ whale watching vessels in the reserve.
  • Today we had a group of 9 from Pearson College visit and tour the island.

Ecological:

  • Lately we have been having very low tides, and today we spotted two gumboot chitons on the jetty track in an area that would not normally be exposed.
  • The younger goslings are learning to swim!
  • The two large male elephant seals appear to be beginning to moult. Today we noticed that one of them has some cracking skin in his chin area.
  • Over the past few days we have noticed more bald eagles, and notably a few young ones.

 

 

Whales! (and census)

Gallery

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This gallery contains 4 photos.

Weather:  Visibility: Very clear, 15 miles Wind: 15-25 knots Sky: Mostly clear, some clouds Water: Choppy, white caps Boats/Visitors:  Today a contractor visited to fix our internet/ phone cable in the main residence. At the same time Corey, two BC … Continue reading →

Wind, Fog, and Eggs!

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Weather: 

  • Visibility varied today. This evening visibility is excellent, 10-13 miles. This afternoon we were surrounded by fog and could not see even nearby north rock (less than 1 mile).
  • Wind this evening is blowing 30-40 knots. This morning was calmer, 12 knots.
  • Sky clear. This was interrupted mid afternoon by thick fog.
  • Water white capping and breaking into spindrift.

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Today was fairly quiet, with only a few whale watching boats in the morning which seemed to mostly keep a good distance. Greg visited this afternoon to deliver water as we are still waiting for the new desalinator. A former student visited as well.
  • The swiftsure international sailing race passed Race Rocks on Saturday, so we have been seeing the boats trickle back towards Victoria over the past couple of days.
  • Yesterday we spotted a rental boat from Pedder Bay Marina attempt to pass through the channel between our main island and the south islands.
  • Lately whale watching boats have been present viewing the elephant seals and sea lions. Many have appeared to be well within the 100m distance from sea lions required by DFO.

Whale watching boat disturbs sea lions on jetty

Whale watching boat approaches sea lions on rocks

Ecological: 

  • Two evenings past we noticed the first seagull eggs of the season. We noticed that one nest was missing its egg the next morning. The seagulls have become quite aggressive towards us but only if we get too close to their nest by accident.
  • There are still four elephant seals on the island, two moulting, the juvenile male from this past spring, and an older female.
  • The sea lions have remained on the SE side of the island, although fewer than what we were seeing before surrounding our jetty. They have been enjoying surfing the waves periodically.
  • Another oyster catcher nest spotted on the SW side.
  • We have been finding dead seagulls presumably killed by the bald eagles that have been hanging around. They especially like to sit on top of camera three.

Seagull guarding its egg and nest.

Other: 

  • Except for in the occasional presence of fog, we have been able to operate the island completely with solar on clear days.
  • We were in need of batteries so missed a few days of salinity/temperature data collection.

More Snow

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles
  • Wind: 15-25 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Waves under a meter

Boats/Visitors

  • Expecting Guy today with a food order and help me refuel the generator

Maintenance

  • The generator is needing a lot of run time lately, I haven’t been running it too much after dark because the paths are made of ice, I don’t have a proper flashlight and there are 5 male elephant seals around the house and I don’t want to run into one in the dark. I will be getting a couple new flashlights today so this won’t be a problem anymore.
  • I haven’t tried running the desalinator the past couple days, just concerned of breaking something if any part of the system froze. I have enough freshwater to last a while though

Ecological

  • the pups are hiding under the stairs in the front of the house, but they are adorable and finally bonding with each other. Once the storm passes they might start going down to the water to splash around so I have to make sure the path stays clear.
  • The female pup is the only female right now, then there is the male pup and 5 other males scattered around.

Puddle seal

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Weather: visibility dropped in the morning as a wet west wind picked up with driving rain.  Wind reached up to 40 knots and pushed in large swells.

Ecologcial:

-As the rain accumulated and low spots started to fill with standing water, the female  e-seal (C887) didnt seem bothered about being in a puddle.

-One of the larger male e-seals move up under one of the house decks where i could get an easy photo of the scar pattern on his back.  There are so many (4) large males now that it is hard to keep them sorted.

-The Valrossa, an oil/chemical tanker, passed by on its way from Guaymas, Mexico to Cherry Point, USA

Maintenance: Finished energy assessment report.

Census, eagles, storms and elephants

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Final exams are over so I will be posting more until I am out for winter break December 20th to January 3rd

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: From 0 – 40 SE over the last few days
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: from calm to huge waves during that last storm

Boats/Visitors

  • Not a lot of visitors lately
  • There were a couple of sailboats yesterday and a few ecotours, but not many

Maintenance

  • Running the generator more lately as is there is less sunlight
  • Still haven’t been able to pressure wash but the parts should be in when I get back from break and I can try to make the buildings white again

Ecological

  • Fewer sea lions than last week
  • Chunk is still the alpha but there are 3 other males on the island of varying sizes smaller than Chunk
  • There is currently 1 female elephant seal
  • a few green wing teal ducks took shelter here when it was storming
  • have spotted a neck banded sea lion, but no way to tell if he will still be here by the time I can people out here to help him

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 213
  • Steller Sea Lions – 192
  • Harbour Seal – 35
  • Elephant Seal – 4 male, 1 female
  • Cormorants – 207
  • Gulls – 233
  • Fox Sparrows – 12
  • Canada Geese – 21
  • Black Turnstones – 38
  • Eagle – 8
  • Raven – 1
  • Snow Bunting – 1
  • Oyster Catchers – 12
  • Harlequin Ducks – 10
  • Green Wing Teal – 6

Project/CAS Week

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NW
  • Sky: Blanket of fog the last 22 hours, it is finally gone
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours braved the limited visibility today
  • I have a group of 7 students along with the Marine Science teacher Laura here for their CAS/Project week, in my year we called it project, now they call it CAS

Maintenance

  • Fence maintenance
  • The students helped me pick up all the garbage that had been washed up or fell off the buildings in the wind or fence pieces, the island is litter free

Ecological

  • Nothing unusual, no elephant seals, roughly the same amount of sea lions and no interesting birds lately

Rain

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 -15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-30 NE
  • Sky: Overcast and raining
  • Water: Swells about a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Not a lot of boat traffic today but there were still a few ecotours braving the weather

Maintenance

  • Fence maintenance, and running the generator because I didn’t get a lot of solar today

Ecological

  • There are a few sea lion pups around, still no elephant seals
  • Not as many sea lions around today, going to do the census tomorrow to hopefully get higher numbers, because there have been a lot of sea lions around lately just not today

River otters and Fences

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles Foggy until noon
  • Wind: 0-10 NW
  • Sky: Cloudy
  • Water: Flat Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • There were still plenty of ecotours even through the fog that covered the island all morning
  • Guy and Greg came by today and we put up the electric fence to keep the sea lions away from the generator room and the guest house

Maintenance

  • Putting up the electric fence and running the generator a bit to make up for the lack of sunlight this morning
  • Guy also brought me fuel today so we topped up the diesel tank

Ecological

  • Found the body of a river otter today near the tank shed, it doesn’t look very old but it was definitely squished
  • Still two female elephant seals but no others have shown up
  • Seems like there is more and more sea lions everyday

Another Elephant

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 SW
  • Sky: Cloudy, patches of fog
  • Water: Flat Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Some boat traffic around, mostly ecotours

Maintenance

  • had to run the generator for a few hours today because there was no sunlight coming through those clouds

Ecological

  • the sea lions are taking up that area between the guest house and the generator room, seems to be more and more of them everyday
  • there is another female elephant seal, shes bigger than the first one that showed up and more calm, she doesn’t look like she is molting as bad as the first one