Tag Archives: census

November Gulls

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Ryan Murphy took this shot from the top of the tower. Race Rocks is an important winter roosting place for several species of gull. He did this image in high resolution so that it can be magnified considerably: This is the distribution of them on the south-west corner of Great Race Rocks, the main island of the Ecological Reserve. The Science house, (originally the assistant light-keeper residence) is shown on the right.

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Gulls at Race Rocks , November 11, 2009–photo by Ryan Murphy, Ecoguardian.

 

Sea Lion Census

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A visual census using  the remote camera 5 focused on Middle Island.

The following panorama was taken of the “middle islands” at Race Rocks from 6 images taken consecutively with a small overlap and then spliced together with a “Photostitch” program which is usually available with the software for an electronic camera.

Educational Application: When we build up a set of these pictures, students can do mathematical projects by going on the camera and getting a live count and then running various statistical comparisons on these archived images. Just click on the image below for a version that is large enough to enable counting and identification.

Click for larger size to count sealions.

censussept2208

Seabird feeding frenzy

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Thursday, November 01, 2001
WEATHER: We had calm seas for most of the day although the wind has increased to over 24knts in the past 1/2 hour.
MARINE LIFE: Fishing was good for the birds and sea lions today! Just after 10a.m. the sky was filled with hundreds and hundreds of sea birds,gulls,cormorants and common murres streaming across the islands southward to a tideline about 1/2 km. away.Looking with the telescope I estimated 3500-4000 sea birds feeding—-by 13:30 most had dispersed. In a space of three hours we saw 5 Steller(northern)sea lions catch salmon (-that looked to be 5-8lbs) in the kelp bed between North Rocks and Gr. Race. The birds,especially gulls rush over to get any bits of fish that break away as the sea lion thrashes the fish back and forth at the surface.The two juvenile elephant seals that were hauled out in the little bay with a group of about 20 harbour seals, swam out into the large kelp bed along the east side of Gr. Race just before 14:00 and had not returned before dark.Have not seen the large bull elephant seal that spends a good portion of the year stretched out atop West Rock.Did a boat tour around all the islands today and counted 97 California and 27 Steller sea lions. Also counted over 800 Cormorants.
posted by Carol or Mike S at 10:03 PM
Good evening
Max. 10.0ºC — Min. 8.1ºC — Reset 9.7ºC — Rain 1.6 mm
posted by Carol or Mike S at 6:04 PM
Good morning
Sky overcast — Vis. 13 miles — Rain showers — Wind north east 5 knots Sea rippled
posted by Carol or Mike S at 7:12 AM

Herring Balls in Race Passage.

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Thursday, September 27, 2001

We enjoyed a fairly typical fall day weather-wise here at Race Rocks today.
Temperatures max 12.0 C — min 9.1 C — reset 11.3 C — Total rain fall for the day 0.4 mm.
Returning from a noon meeting on campus we did a boat tour around all the islets – we counted
280 Northern or Steller sea lions – 295 Californian sea lions and 220 Harbour seals hauled out on the rocks. We also counted approx. 80 Cormorants. Earlier in the day we saw 2 ‘ fish balls’ with several hundred sea birds feeding just east of Great Race.