Mammals
Birds
Mammals
We’ve been hearing Elephant Seal vocalizations at night, but haven’t seen anyone lurking around on the boat ramp. After taking the Race Rocks boat ‘Neighbor’ for a rip we spotted this cutie hiding at the summit of Middle Rock. Courtney used the ‘socketed’ pectoral flipper to differentiate the elephant seal from the surrounding sea lions. After that she started making visits to the boat ramp first thing in the morning. Not pregnant, didn’t give birth, just hanging around.
Female Elephant Seal wallowing at the jetty.
Female Elephant Seal complaining about the noise at Middle Rocks to the NW.
We also got a California Sea Lion hanging out next to the crane with a red flipper tag on his right flipper. We haven’t been able to figure out what this tag identifies yet.
California Sea Lion with a red tag in his ‘flipper-pit’.
No number or identification, just a red clip.
The coveted ‘end of the jetty’ position is all about leverage, and not letting anyone new join the party.
Mammals:
Birds
Boats
Weather must be improving as we’re seeing more sailboats cruising around the Juan de Fuca.
The Stellers diminished this week and started using the fringes after the sea lion pileup from last week.
I try to remember to include the Bald Eagles, they’ve been pretty lazy these days.
Kayaking the rapids at Race Rocks looks pretty fun.
A log kept bumping into her butt and making her angry. Hard life of an Elephant Seal.
Pearson Students coming out to see the wildlife!
This week Second Nature made a trip out with some students to see the Sea Lions! It’s always great to see just how excited students are to see Race Rocks!
California Sea Lion loving that cozy sunshine.
Canada Geese can eat up to up to 2kg of grass a day. It noticable.
Weather has been fantastic, with new Pigeon Guillemots and Oystercatchers showing up.
Mammals:
Birds
Ocean swell coming up the Juan de Fuca onto the jetty.
I guess that counts as winter storms…
Looking south from the Lighthouse.
We got some spicy winds and the temperature dropped out from January 30 – February 5th. With the storms came the California Sea Lions en masse: going from 58 the previous count to 168. The Jetty must be much nicer than wherever their feeding grounds are.
Temperature trends for the week.
Wind data in Km/hour. A little spicy.
I am pretty impressed with the tourism operators that visit Race Rocks: I would have assumed anything over 35 knots would make for a bad day to visit, but we maxed out with 6 tourism vessels visiting the Sea Lions and Birds of Race Rocks, even during the worse day of winds we got this week. We also got a visit by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, doing a patrol of the Ecological Preserve and ensuring the tourism vessels didn’t disturb the Sea Lions.
Wind and current working against each other can make for some lumpy wildlife viewing.
First time I’ve ever seen Sombrio Point visit Race Rocks.
Time to hide from the wind and waves.
As for Race Rocks proper things have been pretty chill. There isn’t much of a stockpile of firewood, so we’ve been scavenging any bits of wood on the island to keep warm when the winds blowing. Hopefully warm weather is coming, or we’d take some evil North wind to deliver us some new fire wood.
Scrounging for any wood to keep things from freezing.
Mammals:
Birds
Boats
We had some Transient Orca practicing hunting maneuvers around the S side of Race Rocks, a very exciting welcome back to the island! We’re told by the whale folks this was most likely T075b’s practicing working together on ‘pincer’ movements on the sea lions.
Mammals:
Birds
Gorgeous day today!
Since it looks like it’ll be my only sunny day of my trip out here, I spent most of it outside. It was also the perfect day for an animal census.
While out and about today I unfortunately came across two entangled sea lions. Both have been reported to the right groups and I will be monitoring them over the next few days to see if they stick around.
Facility Work:
Vessels:
Dec 30 Census:
Mammals:
Birds:
| Race Rocks ANIMAL CENSUS | ||||
| 2024-11-25 | 2024-12-16* | 2024-12-23* | ||
| Elephant Seal(male) | ||||
| Elephant seal (female) | 1 | |||
| Steller’s Sea Lion | 289 | 310 | 335 | |
| California Sea Lion | 263 | 243 | 180 | |
| Harbour Seal | 23 | 10 | 27 | |
| Sea Otter | ||||
| Orca | 5 (3 days ago) | |||
| Humpback | 3 | 2 | ||
| Gray Whale | ||||
| Species 1 | ||||
| Species 2 | ||||
| Species 3 | ||||
| Canada Geese | 27 | 15 | 15 | |
| Harlequin Duck | 4 | 5 | ||
| Black Oystercatcher | 12 | 18 | 0 | |
| Black Turnstone | 228 | 37 | 12 | |
| Surfbird | 3 | |||
| Whimbrel | ||||
| Killdeer | 3 | 4 | ||
| Dunlin | ||||
| Black-bellied Plover | ||||
| Ruddy Turnstone | ||||
| Species 1 | ||||
| Species 2 | ||||
| Species 3 | ||||
| Species 4 | ||||
| Pigeon Guillemot | ||||
| Common Murre | ||||
| Rhinoceros Auklet | ||||
| Species 1 | ||||
| Species 2 | ||||
| Species 3 | ||||
| Species 4 | ||||
| Glaucous Winged Gull | ||||
| Western Gull | ||||
| Glaucous X Western Gull Hybrid | ||||
| Iceland(Thayer’s) Gull | ||||
| Heerman’s Gull | ||||
| California Gull | ||||
| Short-billed Gull | ||||
| Gull Species unknown | 226 | 89 | 187 | |
| Gull Species 2 | ||||
| Gull Species 3 | ||||
| Cormorant total | 147 | 123 | ||
| Brandt’s Cormorant | ||||
| Double-Crested Cormorant | ||||
| Cormorant species unknown | 228 | |||
| Pelagic Cormorant | ||||
| Pelican | ||||
| Great Blue Heron | ||||
| Bald Eagle Juvenile | 6 | 11 | ||
| Bald Eagle Adult | 6 | 3 | 4 | |
| Peregrine Falcon | ||||
| Raptor Species 1 | ||||
| Raptor Species 2 | ||||
| Raptor Species 3 | ||||
| Western Crow | 3 | |||
| Raven | 2 | |||
| Purple Martin | ||||
| Barn Swallow | ||||
| Pacific Wren | ||||
| Savannah Sparrow | ||||
| Fox Sparrow | ||||
| very fast, unable to get pic, wren size | 4 | |||
| Species 2 | ||||
| Species 3 | ||||
| Species 4 | ||||
| Other Species 1 | ||||
| Other Species 2 | ||||
| Other Species 3
* Numbers reflect taken after a large storm surge, animals and birds dissipated, |
||||
Birds
* in addition to the “Regular” birds i saw large flocks (up to about 70 birds each) of Oyster Catchers ….
Mammals
(Temporary mobility issues prevented too much movement in the lower inter tidal zones)
Birds
* in addition to the “Regular” birds i saw large flocks (up to about 70 birds each) of both Turnstones and Oyster Catchers …. that I assume were passing through before and after the large storm(?)
Mammals