Tag Archives: cormorant

Census

Posted on by

Weather: wind was westerly until this afternoon and now is southeast

sunny and the water was calm

Visitors: several ecotourism boats going slowly by the jetty

10 kayaks by north rocks

fishers, 2 right near the RR fishing boundary

Census

7 adult female elephant seals

1 male pup born this year (already close to the size of the smallest female)

12 California sea lions, mostly male

27 stellar sea lions on south islands

60 seals on seal rocks and surrounding water

Cormorants 21

Gulls, Glaucous wing and Western 288 on Great Race,

most gulls are mature and in pairs, no nests yet, on the edges of Race Rock there are some immature gulls

Dunlin 3 ,one in summer plumage

Eagle 3, 2 mature one probably less than 1 year

Canada geese 14 to 20, 3 active nests

pigeon guillemot  counted 104 this morning in one area

oyster catchers  ?20

turnstones ?30

savannah sparrows 8

harlequin ducks 10

brandt’s cormorant 1

 

of note, no river otters, sea otters or whales today and yet it was the perfect day for sightings

brandt’s cormorant

Immature glaucous-wing gull?

Leaving Race Rocks on a High Note

Posted on by

It’s hard to believe a week has flown by!  The boat took me back to the “big island” shortly after 2 pm, but there was still plenty of time before they arrived to have an exciting moment. Daniel Donnecke from Rocky Point Bird Observatory persuaded me to do one last seawatch this morning, once again apparently showing that the birds that fly past Beechey Head do not come close by Race Rocks on their voyage east. It’s likely that they move across the strait over to the American side. It may be wind dependent, but we had no correlation at all the three days we did seawatches at the same time.

Seawatch is a fancy term for trying to identify little specks at the limit of your visual range. This is a Common Murre.

I cleaned the solar panels for the last time this week.  The gulls had been pretty reasonable the last couple of days except for that one section where it was bad every day.

Sparkling clean!

There were several other things to get done to prepare for my departure and Greg’s arrival, but I had plenty of time.  That is I had plenty of time until I turned the corner towards the house and saw a songbird on the ground.  There had only been a Song Sparrow and one or more Brown-headed Cowbirds on the island all week as far as passerines went, so this was good. And it got better when I realized the bird was a Yellow-headed Blackbird, an uncommon bird for Victoria. Normally, my camera is on my shoulder, but since I had been cleaning the solar panels, it was back at the generator building. I did have my phone with me, though, so I snapped a quick couple of documentation shots.  They were really bad, but showed some of the diagnostic features for the species. By the time I got back with the camera, the bird was gone. That just seemed weird, as normally a bird that lands on offshore islands does so because it needs to refuel.  I looked all around, but no luck. So I climbed the tower and searched the whole island from up there. Still no luck, so I came down and continued with my tasks. About two hours later, I looked out the window, and there it was!

Nice of him to stretch out a wing so you can see the white edges on the primary coverts.

Yellow-headed Blackbirds are common in the BC Interior. It’s possible that the smoke may have moved him to the coast.

I probably took 400 shots to make sure I got a few good ones. The time I took following him around, though, cut my packing and cleaning time down. I was just barely finished when the marine radio call came from the Second Nature that Greg and Jeff were only a few minutes away.

Greg’s stuff was unloaded and mine loaded, and before you knew it, we were headed back to Pearson College, leaving Greg on the dock-an unusual situation for him!

It’s been an amazing week, and I’m grateful to the folks at Pearson College for allowing me to serve as the relief Eco-guardian this week. I hope that I will get the chance to do this again!

Ecological Notes:

Mammals

1 Humpback Whale

2 Harbour Porpoise

Steller’s Sea Lion

California Sea Lion

Successful fishing!

Harbour Seal

Birds

5 Black Oystercatcher

10 Black Turnstone

41 Common Murre

65 Pigeon Guillemot

When in breeding plumage, the linings of the their mouths are as red as their feet.

6 Rhinoceros Auklet

1 Heermann’s Gull

60 California Gull

700 Glaucous-winged Gull

3 Pelagic Cormorant

15 cormorant sp.

1 Song Sparrow

1 Yellow-headed Blackbird

Facility Work: Cleaned all the solar panels and the dirty windows

Vessel Traffic: Shipping lanes were busy again today.  Several whale-watching boats ad 2 private fishing boats came by for the sea lions (which they saw) and the elephant seal (which they didn’t).

 Weather – Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

Weather – Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Census report

Posted on by

Ecological Notes: More Gulls less Cormorants this count.

Birds

  • Harlequin duck 14
  • Snowy plover 0
  • Bald eagle adult 4
  • Bald eagle juvenile 6
  • Turnstones 14
  • Killdeer 0
  • Gulls 344
  • Cormorants 83
  • Pigeon guillemots 27
  • Oyster catcher 8
  • Canadian geese 16

Mammals

  • Harbour seal 126
  • California 23
  • Steller sea lion 40
  • Elephant seal male 0
  • Elephant seal female 2
  • Elephant seal pup 4
  • River otter 1

Vessel traffic: 2  SAR vessels

 

Weather Events: SE to West winds 20-30 knots lots of squalls .
Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72

 

 

Census and Orcas.

Posted on by

Animal Census: Feb 17 2021
Gulls 68
Cormorants 738
Pigeon Guillemots 54
Eagles 12
Black Turnstones 28
Harlequin ducks 7
Steller sea lions 77
California sea lions 39
Pacific Harbour seal 62
elephant seal male 2
elephant seal female 2 pups
orca 4
Biggs orcas 7 East bound Southern Resident Lpod J, k pod west bound.

Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past:  http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72

wind west 20 knots sky over cast and rain visibility 10 nm sea state 3 foot chop. 

January 10th Census

Posted on by

Weather: Overcast, but mostly sunny over the last few days. winds 15-20knots.

This feels like we got more sun in January 2021 all of 2020.

Visitors/Traffic: Pretty quiet week, a few fishing boats driving by.

Ecological Notes: Newest Elephant Seal pup was born today. This makes 3 pups total, with the oldest nearing the end of his nursing period. His mom is looking VERY depleted, with 3 more days estimated until the end of her nursing period. His mom has also had a large behavioural change: previously she would ‘fight’ with the Beachmaster when we attempted mating, but over the last 24 hours she’s now much more receptive to his advances. 13-14 times a day receptive.

Cheermeister at 19 days. Looking fat and healthy as his mom gets more and more depleted. In 2020 we saw the pups nurse for 23 days, so he’s getting close to the end of ‘free food’.

Census:

Gulls: 259

Cormorants: 719

Eagles: 6

Turnstones: 22

Elephant Seals: 8 [2 bulls, 3 females, 3 pups]

Steller Sea Lions: 160

California Sea Lions: 121

Harbour Seals: 10

Proof that I take photos of other animals than Elephant Seals. SE Steller Rookery going strong.

Mothers seem to have lots of aggression shortly after a pup is born. Every pup we’ve seen get born here coincides with a bought of mom-on-mom aggression. Although Courtney has pointed out that this is my interpretation of their behaviour, and this could just be a ‘welcome to the fraternity of motherhood’ moment.

Mating looks rough. In larger rookeries this often results in pups getting squished. Here, Cheermeister just needs to avoid getting pinned and he should be good. He’s repetitively gotten in the middle of that mating between his mom and the Beachmaster and hasn’t died…. yet.

Peace descends. As with all things Elephant Seal: the chaos doesn’t last long. After 30 min of excitement everyone rolls over and falls asleep until tomorrows moment of activity,

 

Clear Skies + Elephant Seals! (census)

Posted on by

Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky mostly clear, overcast in late afternoon
  • Wind 0-10 knots N
  • Sea state: calm, glassy!

Visitors: A small number of pleasure crafts trickling through. Only a handful of tourism vessels over the weekend and a few through the late week.

Ecological Notes: 

  • This week has brought some of our favorite visitors to Race Rocks: elephant seals! We’ve been joined by two huge male elephants seals as well as two younger pups that look to be only a year or so old. Unfortunately we haven’t seen any tagged elephant seals yet so that’s all we know for now.
  • We’ve still been spotted seagulls displaying odd behavior. We’ve noticed a total of 7 over the past month.
  • Whale sightings have slowed down now, seemingly as the weather gets colder and salmon runs slow. We have still been seeing around one per day but the sightings are less consistent.
  • Today we noticed a tiny sea lion pup nursing! We mostly only see male sea lions on race rocks, but recently we’ve been noticing very small sea lions arriving. It’s hard to tell the sex of sea lions from a distance so this was the first female we’ve identified in the crowd.
  • The bald eagles have continued to visit to fish and hunt gulls in the early to late morning. They particularly like to sit under the tower containing camera 5, sometimes up to 10 at once! The color variation throughout their different life stages is particularly striking.

Census:

  • 54 Harbour seals
  • 177 Stellar sea lions
  • 233 California sea lions
  • 4 Elephant seals
  • 275 Brandt’s + pelagic cormorants (too far away to distinguish)
  • 6 Double-crested cormorants
  • 5 Surfbirds
  • 3 Dunlins
  • 25 Black turnstones
  • 12 Harlequin ducks
  • 7 Bald eagles
  • 290 Thayer’s gulls

A Big Storm + Lots of Birds! (census)

Posted on by

Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 14 NM
  • Sky partially overcast
  • 30-55 Knots SW
  • Sea state: swells up to 2m, otherwise 3-4+ ft chop

Visitors/Traffic: Nothing other than a few fishing and shipping vessels in the strait.

Ecological Notes: 

  • We found another apparently healthy gull dead today; this is the fourth one since the beginning of the month. We now have two preserved for necropsy, which we hope to transport to land soon to be investigated. They have all displayed the same odd symptoms: weakness in the wings progressing to unable to move, wings dropping to the sides, and unable to make any sound.
  • This week there have been an incredible number of cormorants in the reserve! An underrated bird, they are very fun to watch as they waddle, preen, and fish.
  • We’ve been noticing some fungi popping up around the island now that we are into the rainy season! Photos below. These are in addition to the shaggy mane mushrooms we found last spring fruiting beside the composters.
  • Last week we spotted another “neck wrap”: a california sea lion with some kind of pollution material embedded into his neck. Unfortunately it seems that he is no longer present in the reserve, making a rescue improbable.

Census:

  • 4 black oystercatchers
  • 1 dunlin
  • 1 ruddy turnstone
  • 9 black turnstones
  • 3 surfbirds
  • 500 Thayer’s gulls
  • 17 Canada geese
  • 1550 Cormorants (wow!)
  • 2 bald eagles
  • 100 stellar sea lions
  • 502 California sea lions
  • 2 harbour seals

Halloween Mystery Berries

Posted on by

Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky clear with lots of sun in the later afternoon
  • Wind 0-5 knots N
  • Calm seas

Visitors and traffic: 

  • No visitors over the last couple of days.
  • A handful (3-6) of whale watching boats come through daily as well as a couple of private vessels.

Ecological Notes: 

  • Mara spotted and photographed a small amount of orange/red berries on the ground near the jetty. It would appear a bird regurgitated them – we aren’t exactly sure what they are and haven’t seen anything like this before.
  • The amount of sea lions seems to have stabilized. There are many hauled out, but thankfully this seems to be it! They are very determined to rest near and right up to the south side of our house and all around the lighthouse down to the desalinator building. The worst they do is dislodge some of the rocks that form unused raised beds and low walls around those areas.
  • We have been spotting whales frequently over the last week or two, and saw another humpback today.
  • Last night and the night before it rained heavily and the puddles that remain are being enjoyed by the seagulls and geese.

Some photos from the last couple of days:

Additional Notes: 

    • We have begun clearing out the firewood that was stored under the front deck/stairs. With the work on the guest house stairs nearing completion, the stairs on the main residence could be up next.
    • While moving the firewood we took a closer look at the remainders of a very old looking wrought iron bench (stored with the firewood). This looks like an interesting artifact! The company Innova it still around and selling similar goods.

 

Sunny Fall Days

Posted on by

Weather Today: 

  • Sky clear blue, intermittent thick fog
  • Visibility .5 NM – 15+ NM
  • Wind 5-10 knots W
  • Sea state: calm

Visitors: Jeff and two college contractors visited today. A small handful of eco-tourism boats passed through as well.

Ecological: 

  • The fall weather is setting in and today we saw the first bald eagle that we have spotted in quite a while (since late spring). The sound of the gulls on the island lifting into the air is distinctive enough that we noticed right away!
  • The sea lions have been enjoying lounging in the grassy areas around the low parts of island. They bicker constantly with each other but are just as quick to lay together in large groups when they are in need of a nap.

Successful Sea Lion Rescue!

Posted on by

Weather:

  • Sky Clear and blue
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 20-25 knots NE
  • Sea state: swells up to one meter
  • Temperature outside: 19.8 C
  • Pressure: 1021 hPa (decreasing)
  • We have been seeing consistent fog in the late evening, lasting for an average of 2 hrs. The fog banks seem to move over us from Port Angeles.

Visitors: 

  • Marine Mammal Rescue and DFO visited yesterday (more on this below).
  • Steady flow of pleasure crafts and whale watching vessels over the long weekend.

Sea Lion Disentanglement: 

  • Yesterday Marine Mammal Rescue along with the support of DFO vessels and staff came to help a sea lion with a plastic packing band stuck around his neck. They were able to successfully dart the sea lion with a tranquilizer injection, remove the band, give him tracking tags on his front flippers, and take a blood sample. When this was done they injected a reversal drug to wake him up and with a little scratch he was back on his way!

Ecological Notes:

  • The seagull chicks have officially flown the coop! Only a few remain and we are able to move around the island again without bothering the nesting birds.
  • This year we have noticed significantly less trash left behind by seagulls than last year. Our best guess is that they had more food available to them this summer, which would also align with observing them regurgitating much more fish that the previous season.
  • The sea lions have been increasing in numbers every day. The new fencing material that Nick and Greg used seems to be working much better than the wire that we tried last year, preventing them from damaging the island infrastructure. We have been letting them rest on the jetty this week but we will soon need to install more fencing in preparation for student visits.
  • Yesterday we found two turnstones which appeared to have been killed by the gulls while we were investigating the area near the codar antenna (SW Great Race Rock).