aggressive gulls | Race Rocks Ecological Reserve-

The gulls are showing no mercy. Not to the elephant seal, not to the eagles, and certainly not to me. I will say that they haven’t been as bad as what I was expecting but it does amaze me that nothing seems to scare them, even animals much larger than them.

Through no fault of his own, the elephant seal has been romping through the grass and squashing nests as he goes. The gulls, as you might imagine, absolutely despise him. He seems rather confused as to why they are dive bombing his head and I was impressed as he nearly bit one out of the air. Last night he managed to lay on top of a nest all night without cracking the eggs and I’m still trying to figure out how. He moved onto a different nest this morning and the nest of 3 eggs is now down to 2. Currently he is back on the original nest except this time he is fully on top of it and I would be shocked if any remain unbroken when he leaves.

: Is this considered co-parenting?

: At least he’s keeping it warm

I ended my evening by watching a humpback breach in the distance, causing big splashes with its tail slaps. Unfortunately it was too far away for any decent photographs!

Vessels:

Ecotourism: 30 vessels – most so far this season!
Private: 8 vessels, lots of boats on the water this morning

Weather:

Sky: Mix of sun and cloud
Wind: Low of 1 knots, High of 18 knots – picked up in the afternoon
Sea: Glassy, small whitecaps late afternoon
Temperature: Low 13•C, High 24•C

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

Weather:

Visibility: 15-40 NM
Today we discovered that on the foghorn sensor there is a visibility reading display. Normally we base this off of which landmarks we are able to see (Victoria is around 10 NM, North rock is 1 NM, Port Angeles is roughly 15 NM).
Sky clear and blue, a few white clouds
Wind 25-30 knots W
Sea state: Rough. Waves up to .5 m, white caps
A climb in humidity today after a relatively calm and dry weekend

Marine Traffic/Visitors:

No visitors to the island since Saturday (Greg)
Only a few eco-tourism boats today (very windy), but a steady trickle over the nice weekend. We have been seeing an average of 7 boats every day, not including pleasure crafts.

Ecological Observations:

We noticed yesterday that the goose with a limp (affectionately dubbed “limpy”) is no longer here. We aren’t sure if it was attacked by an eagle or decided to move along (the 13 remaining adult geese are here).
We were happy to see an adult otter run across the jetty boardwalk yesterday, raising our hopes that the dead river otter seen with “Ollie” the sea otter last week may not have been one from under our shed (creating the possibility of abandoned young if this were the case).
The seagulls seem to have gotten even more aggressive as their young begin to venture away from the nest: attacking young of other gulls, diving at our heads, and attacking each other if their individual “territory” (the area around their nests) is invaded. We have to be extremely careful with our movements around the island to avoid scaring chicks into the open where they can be attacked.
Many small harbour seal pups today! They are particularly playful at this time of year as they learn to swim and fish with their mothers. We have been enjoying observing their movements from the top of the lighthouse where our presence doesn’t bother them and we can see directly downwards into the water around the island.

Monday’s Census: