July 25 Gale

I wonder, does the fog horn go all night?

Wind  westerly

At sunrise (530 am) between 30 and 35 knots, dropped to 20 knots midday for about an hour and then quickly came back up at 1800 hours between 35 and 40

clear most of the day but fog rolling in now

water whitecaps huge swells

Boats

About 6 whale watching boats, all respectful of speed and distance from marine mammals (sea lions on middle rocks)

Facility

Could not work outside today cleaning windows or solar panels due to wind but did manage to clean camera 5 as requested

Wildlife

.3m tide at 10:38 this morning. Great place to get away from the nesting birds. I wanted to see if there was damage from the very hot weather 3 weeks ago. Marine life on many coastal areas of BC suffered greatly. The California mussels and most barnacles looked healthy. I think the tidepools suffered the most but hard to tell as I have nothing to compare. in many tidepools the Coralina algae had gone white and there were many dead chitons. Below are some invertebrate pictures, gumboot chitons, Katerina chiton, lined chiton, abalone!, nudibranchs…

I had time to practice counting birds from the lighthouse lamp room. The middle island at midtide had about 500 gulls. Below the light on the east side of Race rocks there were about 50 Turnstones and Surfbirds. They are well camouflaged. Cormorants (pelagic?) numbered about 12 on the north west. Pigeon guillemots are numerous and 2 groups perching on the rocks above me while I walked numbered 34. Oyster catchers I did not count. Below is a picture of the nest by the boat ramp.

Many of the gull chicks are practicing flying. Jump jump jumping while spreading their wings. I saw a couple get good lift.