Wildlife notes

A Canada goose and glaucus winged seagull on their nests beside the walkway to the Keepers House.

Two gulls would not nest this close! Sidewalk goose is sitting on addled eggs and it is a hard thing to watch. She will eventually leave the nest but not until the bitter end when her body can’t sustain it any longer and she needs to eat.  The goose is rather calm and remains on the nest as I pass by whether alone or with a cart or wheel barrow.  Sidewalk gull is a little less relaxed.  She had her nest on the other side of the walkway last year where she had only one chick and constant trouble from the neighbours. This is a better spot for the chick and hopefully the goose will help keep her calm. It really does make my life difficult with an aggressive gull parked on the walkway.  My first gull attack of the season was by Bunker gull this morning. Another inconvenient place to have a nest. The desalinator is in the bunker building (a real wartime bunker) and I must access that building. The time has come to wear my helmet and carry a broom stick!

Facility notes

It was a very busy long day. The generator was running today so I was operating the desalinator and the log splitter all morning to take advantage of the excess power. All available firewood on the island is now cut, split and stacked. Shakes were cut for future kindling and starter pieces made. It is a shame more wood wasn’t hauled up in the spring as little drift wood/logs wash up in summer. Greg and Richard came by in the afternoon and we worked on disassembling the winch and frame assembly for Old Lister, straightening the door frame on the Battery Room, adding water hoses to the Student House, transferring diesel fuel to the generator (100L) and to the furnace tank in the Keepers House (160L). The flag was lowered in preparation for the forecastred gale force winds. I used the furnace this evening as a treat :) Tomorrow I’ll light the usual 2 pm fire.

Firewood supplies stacked in the basement of the Keepers House. Hopefully the sea delivers more.

Vessels

• Ecotourism: >6 (the count is incomplete as I spent much of the day inside buildings)
• Private: 1

Weather

Skies overcast. Periods of rain. Winds NE 13 to 25, gusting 31 in the early evening.

Two tiny harvest brodiaea (crown brodiaea) about 5cm tall were found on the rocks west of the Student Building. It is a native plant not yet found on Race Rocks.  The closest sighting I could find was by the famous botanist Adolf Ceska on the shore across Race Passage in the 1985. It grows from southern BC to California on dry grassy sites or rock bluffs and has traditionally been harvested for its small, nutty flavoured corm which can be eaten raw or cooked.

Harvest brodiaea (Brodiaea coronaria)

Wildlife notes

The gulls are in various stages of courting, nest building and incubating. About 20% of the built nests have eggs in them. Some gulls have not yet built nests and there are areas (compared to last year) not yet fully occupied by courting pairs. There are few sea lions, the pigeon guillemots have been out for most of the day and the three year-old (L334) elephant seal returned today after being absent for a couple of days.

Facility work

• cleaned the solar panels
• brought firewood rounds into the basement ahead of tomorrow’s rain, started organizing wood pile for splitting and stacking

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 13
• Private: 2

Weather

Westerlies 20 knots and partly cloudy in the morning. Skies overcast in the pm, winds 8 knots by evening. Daytime temperatures 11 to 13 degrees.

Wildlife notes

The house is shuddering, the seas tossed and the grass wind whipped. The gulls are mostly on their bellies, head to the wind.  Their beaks are the best wind vanes around revealing the small wind shifts caused by the terrain and structures. The pigeon guillemots and cormorants were out feeding, the sea lions lounging on the rocks and the elephant seals asleep in the grass, unbothered by the winds.

Facility work

The high winds kept me off the roof today but the batteries were so well charged yesterday that the dirty solar panels were able to bring the charge back up to 97% by sundown today.

• battery fluid top up
• daily water sample
• house cleaning
• no solar panel cleaning

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 0
• Private: 0

Weather

Clear skies. Winds W to WNW 28 to 39 knots, gusting to 46. Daytime temperatures 10 to 11 degrees.

Old Lister left the island today in pieces.  She was dismantled and carted away as part of a larger push to remove old equipment, batteries, fuel drums and other toxic materials from the island.  It all went well thanks to a safe and well executed plan, a hardy team of helpers and some very cooperative elephant seals.

Old Lister, the retired Lister 25 KW Diesel Generator Set

Mike operating the belay system to control the decent of the cart down to the boat ramp.

The cart held anchored in place while the crew handlines the boat toward the ramp. The two year-old (center) and the large adult female elephant seal (right) eager to go for a swim were surprisingly tolerant of the activities.

Loading the first and heaviest component.

The two year-old decided she had enough after the first two carts were loaded and headed back uphill.

The team celebrating the successful mission! All the heavy pieces made it aboard.  The rest of Old Lister can leave the island with a much smaller work crew.

Facility work

• removal of Old Lister
• solar panel cleaning

Vessels

• ecotourism: 3
• private: 1

Visitors

The work crew composed of 3 Pearson staff, 1 alumni and 4 additional helpers

Weather

Skies clear. Westerlies 6 to 22 knots until 3pm, then reaching 40 knots with gusts of 46 by 6pm. Daytime temperatures 11 to 15 degrees.

Wildlife notes

When I left Race Rocks on Feb 5th 2026, Sylvia and Ms. B. Lackie, her 17 day-old pup, were the only two elephant seals on the island.  Sylvia left shortly after her pup was weaned and Ms. B. Lackie stayed a lot longer.  Month later now, the grass is knee high and there are 5 different female elephant seals here on Race Rocks. The most famous of these is L334.  She was tagged as a weanling in March 3, 2023 in Ano Nuevo State Park in California. Each year thousands of elephant seals return to the park to breed and to molt (here is a link to their live camera to see just how many and how tightly packed they are).

In May 2024, the one-year-old L334 came to Race Rocks to molt. In her first year she traveled about 750nm to get here and quite possibly did the journey alone.  She came again to molt in April 2025, and is here again this May as a three year-old.

L334 – The 3 year-old elephant seal born in Ano Nuevo State Park, California, coming back from her daily swim. Behind her is a mature female.

L334 and her tag

Using L334 as a size reference, I figure we currently have one, two, three and four year-old juvenile females and one mature female. Note, the one year-old cannot be Ms B Lackie as elephant seals don’t molt until the year after they are born.

The 1 year old is mid-molt, the two to four year-olds are in the late stages of molt and will be leaving soon.  The large adult is just preparing to start her molt.

From  left to right: The two year-old at the end stages of her molt and the “scruffy” one year-old mid way through her molt.

From left to right: The mature female preparing to molt, a four year-old in the late stage molt, and  the three year old L334, also in late stage molt.

Facility work

• topped up battery fluid
• cleaned house
• ran the desalinator
• cleaned solar panels

Vessels

• Ecotourism: 17
• Private: 3

Weather

Sunny. Winds W 5 to 20. Daytime temperature 9 to 13 degrees.