Coming from Bamfield, I expect large volumes of water when the barometer drops and it starts to blow southeast. It was grey and wet today but the wheelbarrow I left out to collect rainwater only has about 500ml of water in it at the end of the day. The barometer is still sliding so maybe I should be careful what I say. The wind did turn around to westerly for a while as it cleared in the late afternoon and is now flowing out from the northeast with more drizzle approaching real rain. From Environment Canada’s forecast it looks like the trend for this week.

Although there are still plenty of recreational fishers around, only one was noted in the reserve today and they were looking at sea lions. There was only one whale watching boat noted in the reserve.

Laura brought the first of her three marine science classes, from Pearson College to Race Rocks today. Courtney masterfully landed Second Nature at the very unforgiving pier and we had a wonderful field trip with a student:teacher ratio of 4:1. The students were really good at moving with stealth so as to not startle the sea lions. This allowed for good sea lion observations, which were noted in their journals. They saw all four species of Pinnipeds and added to their growing species lists with Black Oystercatchers, Black Turnstones, Glaucous-winged, Heerman’s and Thayer’s Gulls. They spotted new (to me) branded California Sea Lions including three branded in the Channel Islands. All of the students had a bird’s eye view from the top of the light-tower thanks to Courtney and we finished off with warm cinnamon buns at the keeper’s house.

After the visitors left, I caught a glimpse of these two Steller’s Sea Lions entangled in sports fishing gear. Those are salmon flashers hanging out of their mouths, which is not good news, as these cannot be disentangled the way the neck-rings can. The individual with one flasher has been hauling out at this same spot for a few weeks now. The one with two flashers, has not seen before today.

I will be watching out for this animal over the next month.

Today was the first time this animal with two flashes was seen here. It will be easy to distinguish it from the one with only one flasher.