Tag Archives: chick

July 7 and 8

Posted on by

Ecological Notes:

  • With the help of the visitors yesterday and some gathering ecotour boats, I spotted a sea otter hanging out in the kelp bed off the east side of the island.
  • This morning, as I was walking along the path from the house, I saw four large birds flying overhead. Their distinct shapes made me realize right away they were brown pelicans. They looped around and flew off to the east. Maybe they thought  it was too crowded to land at Race Rocks with all the gulls nesting.
  • See the photo gallery and captions for more details on the ecological happenings over the past two days.

Weather:

  • Yesterday (July 7):
    • Sky: Part Cloudy
    • Wind: W 8-23 kts
    • Sea: rippled in morning, 1′ chop in afternoon
    • Temperature Low 12oC, High 15oC
  • Today (July 8):
    • Sky: Part Cloudy
    • Wind: W 12-21 kts
    • Sea: rippled in morning, 1′ chop in afternoon
    • Temperature Low 12oC, High 15oC

Visitors:

  • On July 7, Greg, Lawrence and Gretchen visited from the college to help transport supplies and do maintenance tasks on the island.

Facility Work:

  • Scrubbed and squeegeed solar panels, tidied around island, desalinator maintenance, and detached old generator exhaust pipe.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve.

Here are photo highlights from the past two days. Click on the photos for larger views and captions.

Beautiful Spring Day

Posted on by

Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 10-15 knots SW
  • Sea state: calm, rippled

Visitors/Marine Traffic: One pleasure craft within the reserve yesterday

Ecological: 

  • There are now 5 goslings between 2 nests
  • There are 2 oyster catcher chicks (nest on E side of island). They are too elusive for our camera for now!
  • The garbage brought to the island by seagulls is increasing now that they are nesting and laying eggs
  • Yesterday we spotted a patch of broken seagull eggshells near the guest house. Our best guess: the gulls are already looting neighboring nests for food

 

Foggy week and dead gull chicks

Posted on by

Weather

These first days of August were pretty foggy:Everyday the fog was around Race Rocks from 3:00 AM to 9-10 AM and for the 2 last days it was all day long. One day was warm but the others not so much because of the wind. On the 6th the fog around the rock  was just like a thick wall…

Ecological

No more Elephant Seals and slowly the Sea lions are coming back .We saw the first one on the jetty and 2 big stellers on middle were pretty noisy like usual.The 3 last days many dead gull chicks around and gulls are really aggressive (they attack you)…I saw an amazing show:2 eagles and 4 vultures hunting the chicks together (the 2 eagles going to a dive and the vultures staying at the same level in the air). Many pigeons guillemots . 2 beautiful and big cormorants spend a full day on the same rock. and 2 times we had orcas in Race Passage around 11:00 AM followed by so many boats!The second time some were almost on them (10 to 30 meters) …disgusting!

Maintenance

The sea water pump has been repaired and is working well now. Cleaning days before the shift.

Other

Shift over done on the  6th in the afternoon. James got a full tour of the rock and has been introduced.

 

 

Gull chicks everywhere and very aggressive adults gulls

Posted on by

Weather

If July 5th,on  Wednesday, was calm with a  light  South West wind and a good visibility It was not the same situation for the following days:on Thursday the wind raised to 31knots from West and on Friday the 7th, it was very windy the whole day to almost 40 knots in the afternoon. The barometric pressure is depending the days around 1019/1020MB. The water temperature is 10 to 11.9 degrees Celsius at the most.On Wednesday for 30mn we couldn’t see around the rocks farther than 100 meters.

Ecological

The babies are born now and the parents are very nasty! Difficult  to go across the rock ; if you want to be safe  helmet and coat are not  optional! 7elephant seals like usual this Summer.I saw a river otter wrapped in kelp to stay on  the same spot! they are smart!

Maintenance

The sea water pump has been working a lot this week too, even in night time depending when it’s high enough. I had to repair the handle of the high pressure cleaning tool. and I transfer 150 liters of fuel in the main house tank. Solar panels very dirty

Visitors

Kyle and Jeff came to bring 600 liters of fuel. and we transferred from the big tank on Second nature to 3 barrels .

First Glaucous-winged-gull chicks hatch

Posted on by

Weather

We have mainly low winds except on the Monday 26th where we got to 40knots from West otherwise it has been between 5knots to 15knots

Ecological

I spotted the 2 first gull chicks and they were  4/5days old …there are for sure more than 2 and the adults gulls are getting aggressive. I saw a river otter and 2 young ones under the crane like usual.7 Elephant seals are steady on the rocks( moulting time). No Sea lions at all.The eagles get motivated and 2 attacked at the same time!

Vessels

I could count 80 fishing boats but not closed, ecotourism vessels full as usual.

Maintenance

Usual chores ..the solar panels got pretty dirty and needs attention. I transferred the last 240 liter of oil in the main house tank

Check up for the whaler

Posted on by

Weather

West lo southwest light winds under 20 knots have been on  almost all the time since last week. We got some fog and the fog horn running the whole night between Sunday and Monday to a stop at 8:30 in the morning.The rest of the day was sunny with a flat sea…DSC_0191

Ecological

At low tide the water was pretty far discovering an interesting world of rocks covered with fresh algae. We could count only 4 sea lions (Steelers) around and 60 chickens seen from the front window. If we compare with last year we had 110 sea lions and 87 chickens from the front window .What a different situation.Last year the first one on the jetty came on the 23rd.We will see …the usual 4 elephant seals are most of the time sleeping on Main Rock and the babies are growing fast. Not so much drama I guess because they have enough space but the gulls closed to the path are still defensive and this night a new one was born with 2 more coming (the last ones )so it’s going to be even more difficult to go the jetty! No new dead birds.(only 3 to now ) On Sunday we could count more than 16 whale watching vessels  way beyond the green boyd because of a long pod of orcas.DSC_0217DSC_0220

Maintenance

Guy changed the boat pump for a more efficient one.It was 360 GPM and now it’s 750. He left in the fog early on Monday because of an appointment with a Yamaha specialist. At the college they took the whaler off the water and put it on a trailer.We took the zodiac until the trailer is ready. Camera 3 has been stoppedDSC_0194

Other

3 times this week we had a plane above. Watching boats like usual.

 

 

July 17 to 19th : A calm week-end

Posted on by

It has been 3 beautiful and sunny days .The wind was light at the most 20 knots in daytime and 30 knots on Sunday night .The North wind from the morning became West in the afternoon. The water temperature was still around 12 degrees Celsius. The water salinity stayed around 31.5 and the air at 5 OOAM 10 degrees. The barometric pressure was 903.1 HPa and 1001.8 HPa the day after.
We had no visitors and around the Rocks around 15 whale watchers.
Now we can count around 25 chicks from the front window. Some are already half size of the adults one but a few one have been born only a week ago. At date we found just one body and a half broken egg with the dead chick inside.
We did a few maintenance jobs like the cleaning of the students’ house windows and tidying up the basement in the eco-guardians place. Guy took off the ladder at the jetty, which has to be repaired, or changed .He sanded part of the trailer boat and begin repainting it with some rust paint.

Nursery Island

Posted on by

Nursery island

It was still 20 knots when we awake but the rest of the day was pretty calm from 15 knots to 22 at the most. What a change! We could see very far that day…

After so much wind we were not alone outside enjoying a normal summer day. ..We could call the rock “Nursing Island “because chicks are really everywhere and the gulls are pretty nervous never stopping between feeding the young one and watching out for danger. No way to go around without your yellow helmet like a big bill on the top of the head! Those birds hit you once but not two times and it hurts! You remember!

We had another show from Chunk and the young female in the water. She really wanted to please him! Even after weeks we are still amazed by those attaching animals. They have lost a lot of weight and are now pretty active spending a lot of time in shallow water and each time going back and forth from water to a grassy spot.

 

Desalinator and generator have been on for a few hours. Everything is working perfectly.

Storm

Posted on by

Storm conditions late in the evening
Here is the evolution of the wind coming from West through out the day

5:20 AM: 30 knots
6:05 AM: 32 knots
7:22 PM: 36 knots
8:07PM: 39.1knots
9:38PM: 45.8 knots
9:50PM: 44 knots
22:10: 43.3knots
22:30: 47.7knots
22:47: 50.6Knots

Reminder
6 force= 22-27 knots =39-49 kms/h = Strong breeze
7 force =28-33 knots=50-61 kms/h= Near gale
8 force=34-40 knots=62-74 km/h=Gale
9 force=41-47 knots=75-88 km/h=Strong gale
10 force=48-55 knots=89-102 km/h=Storm

It has been something to see the wind raising but as soon as it has been dark we couldn’t appreciate how big was the sea around the rocks …so we went to sleep.

During that day around 12 whale watchers came and we observed that the smallest gosling in the family of 5 was not swimming with the rest of the family but was wandering on the island limping a little bit (left leg)…later he manage to get accepted by the parents but stayed always behind the group of siblings (4). It is very difficult to spot those little oystercatchers … so I was pleased.

Chores done as usual

July 7th Chicks everywhere

Posted on by

July 7th Tuesday: Chicks everywhere

No more rescue boats around anymore but a tourist plane flew by the island once.

Moderate West wind was between 14 knots to a maximum of 20 knots. No fog and still a little bit of a yellow haze in the sky.
We saw Floyd and Chunk swimming closed to the South islands

From the front window of the main house we could count around 20 chicks mainly under the parent’s wings but they grow pretty fast. The adults behavior is changing they become very active doing their job, protecting each other and the chicks feeding the young ones and going fishing. They are getting aggressive. We have to wear a helmet all the time but they know us and now they just make us know that they are ready to attack. There are still a few eggs not yet hatched but not so many.