Tag Archives: Black Oystercatcher

2500 to 3000 sea birds feeding

Posted on by

 

Thursday, January 03, 2002
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 10.0C — Min. 6.9C – Reset 7.7C — Rain 1.3 mm
MARINE LIFE:Another red letter day,calm sea,blue sky and wonderful warm sunshine. There were 3 ( 1 mature ) Bald Eagles today. Counted 18 Black Oyster Catchers and again 7 Harlequins ( 4 Male ). There was a lot of feed in the water in the tide lines, 200-300 hundred metres off the reserve to the west and north,and into Pedder Bay.There must have been 2500 to 3000 sea birds feeding. The eagles were flying low just skimming the surface, talons outstretched as they hit the water.As the eagles circled,the other birds flew off and landed some distance away, except for about 7 or 8 gulls that tried to ‘herd’ the eagles away.Every once in a while the eagles would dive at the gulls, I think more out of frustration from the harassment then wanting to catch the gull- it was the fish they were after.It is so quiet with the light wind that we have heard Elephant Seals vocalizing tonight.
HUMAN INTERACTION: There were 4 boats through the reserve today 2 orange Ribs ( 1 whale watcher ) 1 pleasure craft-sight seeing and 1- 4 metre boat with 3 divers between Gr. Race and West Race.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:10 PM

Good Morning

WEATHER: Sky Cloudy — Vis. 15 Miles — Wind South East 3 Knots — Sea Rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 8:11 AM

Out of the dark days

Posted on by

-2002-01-02′, ’15:45:15′, ‘It was sooo nice to see the sun after so many dark, windy days! It was such a pleasure to do the morning walk without getting chilled to the bone with the north wind and drenched in spray.We had 7 -2 mature) Bald Eagles and 1 immature Peregrine Falcon today.The Eagles spent several hours on the Southeast rocks then moved over to West Race.The crows and starlings were nowhere to be seen while the Peregrine Falcon was around but soon reappeared after it flew off towards the north.The gulls and cormorants seemed more alerted to the Falcon than the Eagles.The eagles are impressive in their size but the Falcon is incredibly fast. A group of 22 Black Oyster Catchers spent a good part of the day along the south shore of Gr. race. The 7 harlequins were also back today in the east bay.The big job tomorrow will be clearing the boat ramp of all the driftwood that has piled up over the past week. ‘, ‘Carol or Mike S’, ’15:46:06 ,

Peregrine falcon visits

Posted on by

Wednesday, January 02, 2002

 Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 10.5C — Min. 7.9C — Reset 9.0C — Rain 0.4 mm
MARINE LIFE: It  was sooo nice to see the sun after so many dark, windy days! It was such a pleasure to do the morning walk without getting chilled to the bone with the north wind and drenched in spray.We had 7(2 mature) Bald Eagles and 1 immature Peregrine Falcon today.The Eagles spent several hours on the Southeast rocks then moved over to West Race.The crows and starlings were nowhere to be seen while the Peregrine Falcon was around but soon reappeared after it flew off towards the north.The gulls and cormorants seemed more alerted to the Falcon than the Eagles.The eagles are impressive in their size but the Falcon is incredibly fast.A group of 22 Black Oyster Catchers spent a good part of the day along the south shore of Gr. race. The 7 harlequins were also back today in the east bay.The big job tomorrow will be clearing the boat ramp of all the driftwood that has piled up over the past week.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:12 PM
Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Overcast — Vis 12 Miles — Light Rain — Wind North 9 Knots — Sea 1 Foot Chop Low East Swell
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:45 AM

Haematopus bachmani: Black Oystercatcher–The Race Rocks Taxonomy

Posted on by
2bloy

Black Oystercatcher, Haematopus bachmani photo by Ryan Murphy

Usually up to 6 pairs of the Black Oystercatcher, Haematopus bachmani nest at Race Rocks . They are also winter residents on the island, with numbers up to 100 individuals at times .

This link will connect you with the log showing the many
entries referring to Haematopus bachmani at Race Rocks.

ryansseton -Black oystercatcher

 

See  Ryan Murphy’s Flickr site for excellent images he took while he was ecoguardian at Race Rocks- 2009-2011

 

bloynest3mAn Oystercatcher nest demonstrates the fine art of camouflage
Classification:
Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Subphylum Vertebrate
Class Aves
Subclass Neornithes
Superorder Neognathae
Order Charadriiformes
Suborder Charadrii
Family Haematopodidae
Genus Haematopus
Species bachmani
Common Name :
Black Oystercatcher

Images for this slide show of mating Black oystercatchers were taken on the remote camera 5 by PB. May 29, 2006

This video of the black oystercatcher on the nest in June 2007 was screen-captured from camera 2 which was placed two metres from the nest for the duration of incubation.

June 24, 2007: Hatching day! By the end of the day three chicks are active. This video by Garry Fletcher is a compilation of events throughout the day.

BLOYJune8 -hatch
Link to this post from June 22, 2008 for the hatch of Black Oystercatchers near the boathouse captured from a live webcast on a video camera.

blkoybehav1sSee this video on Black Oystercatcher Behaviour

 

 

 

This post in 2024 has great photos of the chicks of BLOYs

For an interesting article on precocial birds such as these oystercatchers see this link.

The black oyster catcher is a jet black bird with a long red beak and pink legs. They grow to 43-44 cm, relatively large for shorebirds. The male and female adult birds are alike in appearance, but juveniles are dull brown. Race Rocks is home to at least six pairs during early May. The birds leave in early fall and return in later December, in numbers up to 30. In the Race Rocks Christmas bird counts numbers as high as 64 in 1997 have been recorded.

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
64 17 1 25 16 39 storm 16 35 22 0 storm
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
57 32 60 36 30 3 40 — — — — —

The birds often use distracting displays, pretending to have a broken wing or surprising other birds that invade their nests, but are otherwise non-territorial. Both parents incubate two or three eggs on average, and mates may stay together for several years. Locally, since there are no oysters, the bird is not so aptly named, but it does prey upon a variety of intertidal shellfish, including limpets, chitons and various snails. Birds of the same family occupying the same ecological niche are found throughout the shorelines of the world.
Their long, chisel-like beak is perfect for prying the shells open to feed on the soft flesh inside. The skull to the left was the product of predation by a river otter in 2001. The presence of the black oyster catcher nesting areas can be noted upon the discovery of piles of empty shells in the nooks and crannies of Race Rocks. Analysis of the different shells found in these piles has been done and it serves as an indicator of shellfish species diversity on the island, as well as the food web of the oystercatchers.

See the results of the Fall 1999 collection of shells from the midden of the oystercatchers.

Also go to the Lab on the Ecological Niche of the Black Oyster-catcher.

see this Video by Paul Omole of a Black Oystercatcher Feeding. –Sounds of Foghorn in the background .
Other Members of the Class Aves at Race Rocks.

taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.

This file was originally started by Stewart Maudsley, Dec. 2001.

 

Westerly blows and Elephant seals huddle

Posted on by

Friday, December 14, 2001

Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max. 8.9C — Min. 6.8C — Reset 6.8C — Rain 6.2 mm
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:12 PM

MARINE LIFE:the westerly continues to howl at 44-50 knots and the favoured spot on Gr.Race is the east Bay area.There are 250-300 gulls,beaks into the wind,along the ridges of the cliffs.The 26 Black Oyster Catchers prefer to huddle in twos and threes in the shelter of large bolders.There are 67 Northern Sea Lions and 26 California Sea Lions packed together like ‘pick-up’ sticks also along the east ridge.Closer to the water and in the lee of the house, two juvenile Elephant Seals are ‘cuddled’ together as if to keep warm.The Harbour Seals however seem to enjoy the surf and spend a lot of time diving into the 2-3 metre waves.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 4:23 PM

Good Morning
WEATHER: Sky Part Cloudy Vis. 15 Miles — Wind 30 Gusting 45 Knots — Sea 6 Foot moderate with Moderate South West Swell
posted by Carol or Mike S at 8:48 AM

Bald Eagle takes seagull

Posted on by
Monday, December 03, 2001
Good Evening
TEMPERATURE: Max 7.1C — Min 4.3 Reset 4.7C — Rain 0.6 mm
Marine Life:Three mature Bald Eagles arrived in the area this morning about 11:15 ,one perched on the ‘look-out’ log on N.Rks while the other two shared a high point on the SE Rocks. all was quiet for over an hour when one of the two took flight, circled the rock twice,swooped behind the rock and reappeared with an immature gull in it’s talons.As the eagle with the gull landed the other two eagles started harassing the successful hunter to the point the it flew off leaving the now dead gull.I expected to see the other two eagles move in on the prey however they just remained on the ridge about a metre away from the gull just watching.Finally the third eagle came back,the other two took flight and the three eagles spent about 5 minutes flying at each other often with their talons out-stretched.At last one eagle left the fray swooped down made an unsuccessful grab for the gull then just continued flying north towards Pedder Bay.The other two flew over to West Race, sat there about 10 minutes then flew off towards Whirl Bay.Why the eagles left the gull I don’t know but it did not go to waste as the ever vigilant crows soon moved in for a meal!
A Great Blue Heron spent 11/2 hours in the East Bay area just below the tower then flew off towards Pedder Bay.Also a group of Black Oyster Catchers arrived just at sunset and settled among the rocks on the east side of Gr. Race.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:10 PM
Good morning
WEATHER: Sky Cloudy — Vis. 15 Miles — Wind West 7 Knots — Sea Rippled — Occasional Light Rain Shower
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:32 AM

Harlequin Ducks return

Posted on by

Wednesday, November 07, 2001

MARINE LIFE: Over 150 Northern Sea Lions were on Middle Rocks in the mid afternoon, another 15 on North Rocks. Harbour seals are scattered in several little pockets an various islands usually no more than 8 in one area. Many of the Californian Sea Lions have moved to the rocky beach just South of the Tower. I also saw for the first time this fall, the flock of 20 Black Oyster Catchers high on the Rocky shore, to the sw of the engine room.
posted by Garry Fletcher at 9:53 PM
WEATHER: The day was part cloudy and windy with max. temp of 9.3 ºC and min. temp. of 7.1 ºC .
MARINE LIFE: Five Harlequin Ducks have arrived back for the winter. We were filming them as they patrolled through the kelp beds around the edge of Great Race Rocks.
PC STUDENTS: Our fourth day at Race Rocks has just ended. Today, we managed to finish off refilling the oil tanks and this should take us until April. Garry came over to deliver the G3 Powerbook for a webcast later this evening.
HUMAN INTERACTION: One boat with eight people passed by Race Rocks.
posted by Michael Kiprop at 6:43 PM

Driving Rain

Posted on by
Monday, October 22, 2001
Good evening
Max 10.5ºC — Min. 8.0ºC — Reset 8.9ºC — Rain 13.6 mm. As you see it was not a good day for fishing.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:33 PM
The poor quality video from camera#1 and especially #3 is because of the sheets of rain driven by the 45-50knt. winds we are enjoying at this time! The visibility is very poor but looks like all but 8 or 9 sea lions have moved into the water, the aprox. 300 gulls are all huddled together in small groups facing into the westerly.13 Black Oyster Catchers are together in a small depression on the east side of Gr. Race in the shelter of the house.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 3:48 PM

The Johan Ashuvud Project, 2000

Posted on by
crews-1

Victor David and Satoshi: For two weeks in May and June of 2000, Lester Pearson College graduating students, Victor Rakou, David Mesiha and Satoshi Kimura, and in the last week, Juan Manuel Alva and Martin Kryl, joined the sea gulls and stayed at Race Rocks running daily programs on a live camera, and broadcasting directly to the web. Faculty member Garry Fletcher worked with them for the daily webcasts from the shore and from underwater. Sponsorship for this week came from the Johan Ashuvud memorial fund.

The first big event was the Swiftsure Race Weekend. A camera was set up along with a supporting G4 computer in the top of the light tower. Two streams were broadcast, one to camera 4 on the website and a special experimental dedicated stream to Shaw Cable. This stream was of TV quality at 1Mbps and 21 FPS.

Our thanks to Kevin Sytsma of LGS for coming out to help setup for this 2 day broadcast and to Ken Dunham ( PC year 9) for reconfiguring the server from Ottawa in order to handle this experiment.

Each day at Low tide we set up in different locations around the island, always being careful to not disturb the nesting seabirds futher up on land. A Sony camera linked by Firewire to a G3 500 Mghz computer was located in the intertidal zone. From here, Audio and Video Signal went by the wireless Macintosh AirPort Link to the Science Centre. From here the signal traveled by Cat.5 cable to the top of the light tower where it was sent by radio to the Telus antenna at Lester Pearson College. From there it was webcast in live streaming video to the internet by a Macintosh G4 500.

Content through the week ranged from adaptations of organisms to the special ecological niches of tidepools and intertidal slopes, to First Nations use of resources and the role of community/ stakeholder participation in the Marine Protected Areas Pilot process.

The airport wireless base station was tried in a number of locations. We relied on David to find the best locations for connectivity. Best wireless transmission was achieved when we hoisted it up to the roof of the science house. The radio waves go through buildings but not through rocks!

Further editing for the video archives took place in the science centre in the evenings.

Video created this week by the team:

june92000s jochensealions newgulls wwfgulls
Underwater Invertebrates and Fish On the last day of live webcasting, sea lions visited Glaucous-winged gull behaviour Gull territorial aggression

Chris Blondeau from Lester Pearson College joined us for a session on the care and maintenance of the underwater camera and housing. Chris is in charge of the shore-front at the college and is in charge of the SCUBA Diving program there.

We were also fortunate to have some visitors take part in the intertidal discussions we had on the islands. Dr. Jochen Kuum ( PC year 10) is seen here with Garry and diving with Satoshi and Victor Stephen Haggarty (PC year19) also participated above and below water. This video was made on the last dive

 

Carol Slater, who along with her husband Mike are the guardians of the MPA joined us to talk about the Black Oyster Catcher. We examined the trays of shells from last years midden of one nest. This parent bird was foraging off to the East of the dock where they hatched two chicks this year

Race Rocks viewed from the South at Rosedale Rocks Buoy.

One of the best parts in staying at Race Rocks overnight while doing these webcasts was the great sunsets. Sometimes you can view these on the remote control camera 1 and camera 5.

 

Predation by the Black Oystercatcher….1999

Posted on by

In September of 1999, the students of the Environmental Systems Class collected the shells in the midden surrounding the nest of a pair of Black OysterCatchers at Race Rocks, They analysed the size, species diversity, and species frequency of the shells. The following data and charts are presented in order to provide information about the role of this seabird in the intertidal ecology of Race Rocks.

Numbers of Shells Collected Near Black Oyster Catcher’s Nest
    Limpets: Mask, Shield, and Plate 350    
    Limpets: Whitecap 70    
    Limpets: Fenestrate 19    
    Limpets: Rough Keyhole 2    
    Chitons: Black Katy 73    
    Chitons: Mossy 13    
    Chitons: Lined Red 7    
    California Mussels 342    
    Ribbed Whelk 5    
    Amphisia Snail 1    
         

Average Size of the Oyster Catcher’s Food california mussels –5.2875 cm plate,mask,shield limpets–3 cm whitecap limpets 5.2875 cm 3 cm 2.985 cm Size of Oyster Catcher’s Food: Raw Data, in cm

california mussels plate, mask and shield limpets white cap limpets
3 2 1.7
4 2.2 2.1
4.2 2.5 2.3
4.5 2.8 2.4
4.6 2.8 2.5
4.6 2.8 2.6
4.7 3 2.7
5.2 3 2.8
5.25 3.1 2.9
5.3 3.2 3
5.5 3.4 3.2
5.5 3.4 3.2
5.5 3.5 3.2
5.8 3.5 3.2
6. 3.5 3.3
6.5 3.5 3.6
6.6 3.6 3.7
7.5 3.8 3.8
7.8 3.8 3.8
gfcarolshell

Garry Fletcher and Ecoguardian Carol Slater examining sorted shells of black oystercatcher prey from on midden.

Image1 Image3