Tag Archives: animal census

Wildlife Census

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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:

  • Stellar Sea lions: 126
  • California Sea lion: 153
  • Harbour Seal: 48
  • Northern Elephant Seal: 1

Birds

  • Gulls: 45
  • Cormorants: 38
  • Eagle: 1 Adult, 2 Juvenile
  • Turnstones: 14
  • Canada Geese: 5 – 2 breeding pairs
  • Oystercatcher: 22
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 26

Boats

  • Recreation Salmon Fishing: 18
  • Tourism: 4
  • Sailboats: 4

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.

 

Census + Spring has sprung!

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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:

  • Stellar Sea lions: 64
  • California Sea lion: 87
  • Harbour Seal: 14

Birds

  • Gulls: 55
  • Cormorants: 25
  • Eagle: 2 Adult, 2 Juvenile
  • Turnstones: 14
  • Canada Geese: 5 – 2 breeding pairs
  • Oystercatcher: 15
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 52

Ocean swell coming up the Juan de Fuca onto the jetty.

Animal Census

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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:

  • Stellar Sea lions: 70
  • California Sea lion: 168
  • Harbour Seal: 22
  • Sea Otter: 1 (Ollie?)

Birds

  • Gulls: 55
  • Cormorants: 30
  • Eagle: 4 Adult, 5 Juvenile
  • Turnstones: 14
  • Canada Geese: 8 – 4 breeding pairs trying to hunker down
  • Oystercatcher: 25
  • Pigeon Guillemots: 45

Boats

  • Tourism: 6
  • Private: 0
  • Government: 1

Animal Census

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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:

  • Stellar Sea lions: 195
  • California Sea lion: 125
  • Harbour Seal: 20
  • Orca: 4 – T075b

Birds

  • Gulls: 60
  • Cormorants: 120
  • Eagle: 6
  • Turnstones: 10
  • Canada Geese: 13

 

Last Census of 2024 & 2 Entangled Sea Lions

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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:

  • Topped up battery electrolytes
  • Repaired electric fence
  • Dug up weeds
  • Washed main house windows

Vessels:

  • Private: 1
  • Ecotourism: 3

Dec 30 Census:

Mammals:

  • California sea lions: 182
  • Steller sea lions: 339
  • Harbour seals: 24

Birds:

  • Bald eagles: 25
  • Canadian geese: 15
  • Gulls: 531
  • Turnstones: 47
  • Cormorants: 132
  • Oyster catchers: 6
  • Harlequin ducks: 8

Race Rocks ANIMAL CENSUS December 23

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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,

November 25th Animal Census

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Birds

  • Harlequin duck                           4
  • Bald eagle adult                         6
  • Bald eagle juvenile                     4
  • Turnstones                                  28 *
  • Killdeer                                       3
  • Gulls                                             226
  • Cormorants                                  283
  • Oyster catcher                             12 *
  • Canadian goose                           27
  • Pacific Wren                                   2

* in addition to the “Regular” birds i saw large flocks  (up to about 70 birds each) of Oyster Catchers ….

 

Mammals

  • Steller sea lion                               289
  • Harbour seal                                       23
  • California sea lion                            263
  • Elephant seal female(pregnant)         1
  • Humpback Whales – several around the reserve, occasionally venturing inside
  • Animal Tracking and Injuries:          
    • 1 California Sea Lion identified as “Tuck” disentangled last year at Race Rocks…. still has a large open wound on the back of his neck, but quite well healed compared to the original injury

Animal Census Nov 11

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(Temporary mobility issues prevented too much movement in the lower inter tidal zones)

Birds

  • Harlequin duck                           4
  • Bald eagle adult                         3
  • Bald eagle juvenile                     2
  • Black Turnstones                                  47 *
  • Killdeer                                         6
  • Gulls                                             287
  • Cormorants                                  565
  • Oyster catcher                             12 *
  • Canadian goose                           23
  • Pacific Wren                                   4

* 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

  • Steller sea lion                                 342
  • Harbour seal                                       43
  • California sea lion                            395
  • Elephant seal female(pregnant)         1
  • Humpback Whales – several around the reserve, occasionally venturing inside
  • Animal Tracking and Injuries:          
    • 1 California Sea Lion identified as “Tuck” disentangled last year at Race Rocks…. still has a large open wound on the back of his neck, but quite well healed compared to the original injury

October 27th Census

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Its census day! See below for today’s numbers, sea lions are down significantly but the weather hasn’t been great and I do tend to notice that they take off into the water when the rain picks up!

Mammals:

Steller sea lions: 282
California sea lions: 425
Harbour seals: 36
Killer whales: 7
Humpbacks: too many to count/track!

Birds:

Gulls: 312
Cormorants: 874
Canadian geese: 18
Bald eagles: 6
Turnstones: 36
Whimbrel: 1
Harlequin ducks: 5

Entangled Sea Lion and Oct 20 Census

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*WARNING* Today’s blog post contains photos of a severely entangled sea lion with deep wounds.

Well, if my warning wasn’t an indicator – today has not been the most fun day of animal spotting.

I came across a California sea lion this morning with by far the worst entanglement I’ve ever seen. What appears to be monofilament fishing net has wrapped itself so tight that its caused deep wounds on the back of his neck, as well as the rest of the way around. On top of that, the netting is so tightly wrapped around his muzzle that he doesn’t appear to be able to open his mouth.

Given that my full time job is in marine mammal rescue, seeing entangled animals is not new to me, I see them so often that I sometimes feel immune to how awful it is.

Today I am not immune, I am horrified.

All of the right organizations and people have been contacted and I know that every single one of those people will do everything they can to help him. I just hope he stays put until then.

There is a second entangled sea lion here as well, a Steller with a packing strap around its neck which is bad but thankfully not as severe as the Cali.

Moving on to today’s census….with the weather being so bad this weekend, I’m not surprised the numbers are down from last week!

Mammals:

Steller sea lions: 392
California sea lions: 652
Harbour seals: 41

Tons of humpbacks this week and a few transient orca stopped by the jetty yesterday in the midst of the storm!

Birds:

Gulls: 215
Cormorants: 170
Turnstones: 25
Canadian geese: 23
Oyster catchers: 2
Golden-crowned kinglet: 3

If you’ve made it this far, here is a picture of a cute little bird: See the taxonomy page at https://racerocks.ca/regulus-satrapa-golden-crowned-kinglet/

Golden Crowned kinglet

Golden-crowned kinglet. Regulus satrapa

Vessels:

  • Ecotourism: 5

Weather:

  • Sky: Cloudy and rainy
  • Wind: Low of 3 knots, high of 19 knots, with gusts up to 37 knots
  • Sea: Whitecaps in the afternoon
  • Temperature: Low 9•C, High 14•C

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