Wind: yesterday 3-34 knots from N to W, today 19-33 knots from W
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today chop up to 1 m
Visibility: both days 10-15 NM
Sky: yesterday partly cloudy with rain in evening, today overcast then heavy rain late morning clearing in afternoon
Temperature: yesterday 6-9 °C, today 6-7 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.05 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)
Census results from Sunday, February 16:
7 elephant seals (4 adult males, 2 female pups, 1 male pup)
68 california sea lions
21 steller sea lions
40 harbour seals
9 bald eagles (8 adults, 1 juvenile)
2 Canada geese
19 brandt’s cormorants
16 double-crested cormorants
30 pelagic cormorants
547 gulls (mostly thayer’s gulls)
2 black oystercatchers
8 harlequin ducks
10 black turnstones
1 song sparrow
1 snow bunting
Yesterday, I used the leaf blower in the boat house to clean out the thousands of dead flies left over from last summer. I laid out 76 m (250′) of fire hose to pump water from the jetty to the cistern. The fire pump ran for a couple hours to top up the seawater cistern used for the desalinator.
For the first time this winter, I saw about 20 pigeon guillemots in the water just north of the jetty yesterday morning. I haven’t seen any since.
There were 3 tour boats in the ecological reserve yesterday and no visitors on the island this weekend.
Photos from the past two days:
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- The alpha male elephant seal stopped by to check the progress on filling the cistern with seawater.
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- The two female elephant seal pups have been hanging out near each other for the past two days. Perhaps a friendship is forming.
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- The daffodils are starting to open up.
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- Soaring bald eagle
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- Harbour seals on South Islands
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- One of the male elephant seals is hauled out on the Middle Rocks. There are also sea lions, gulls and eagles.