Tag Archives: elephant seal

Pressure Cleaning

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Ecological Notes:

  • 6 female Elephant Seals, 2 “pups”
  • Lots of time in the water, staying close to the ramp
  • 2 Canada Goose nests lost all their eggs to other birds, they are extra aggressive now!

Just Chillin’

Visitors:

  •  Shorefront Manager, food and de-ionized water delivery

Facility Work:

  • Fine Tuning Deck work
  • Pressure washing until rain water storage was dry

Never ending

Fresher look

Then, you run out of rain water for the pressure washer!

DND events:

  • 4 Detonations YESTERDAY (Wednesday April 28) …… noted animal anxious startled, especially those in the water

Weather Events:

  • Mostly sunny, some light overcast. Light westerly winds

 

Weather – Current:

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

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Bird Courting Time

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Ecological Notes:

  • 6 female Elephant Seals, 3 molting very heavily
  • 2 Elephant Seal pups, one spent much of the day soaking in the water at the end of the boat ramp
  • Although not right in the reserve, observed one Humpback whale, about 1 mile south, and Transient Orca between the reserve and Bentinck Island. Identified as the T101’s and T100B’s
  • Lots of courting behavior observed with the Pigeon Guillemots, and also the Harlequin ducks

Pigeon Guillemots

Harlequin Ducks

Facility Work:

  • Pressure washing main building

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • 5 EcoTourism boats, spread throughout  the afternoon
  • 3 separate sport boat went through the reserve at high speed, luckily no obvious disturbance of the animals other than noticeable wake

Weather Events:

  • Cloudy with sunny breaks, Calm seas

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

 

 

Weather – Current:

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

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Surface Temperature and Salinity

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Ecological Notes:

  • 6 female Elephant Seals
  • Elephant Seal pups: Only 2 pups on land

Packing tight to preserve heat!

  • lots of nest building by the Gulls and Oyster Catchers

Checking out a good spot

Bringing the goods!

 

Black Oyster Catcher

Facility Work:

  • Continuing the fine work done by the previous Eco Guardians, more scrubbing and pressure washing

Feature event:

  • Daily Water Sampling – Taken each day and reported monthly to The Institute of Ocean Sciences

Waiting for the pier to clear ….

The peanut gallery …

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

 

Weather Events:

  • Cloud coverage, light drizzle, and Calm Seas

 

Weather – Current:

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

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

4 Elephant seal pups are swimming daily!

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Elephant Seals:  Now 7 molting female elephant seals that spend their days sun bathing and/or swimming.
Elephant seal pups:4 and they are swimming daily.
Visitors:2
Facility Work: Back stairs started.  Wood and water delivery
Vessel Traffic 3 sport boats
Weather Events: Flat water with sun all day.
Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past:  http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72
 

Female elephant seal

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Eco guardian notes: This morning another new female elephant seal arrived during the night. We now have five females four pups.  This new animal has two green tags E103 E135. She has returned to molt on the island for the last 4 years. Welcome home.

Elephant seal pups: 4
Elephant seal female: 5
Visitors: 0
Facility Work. Getting ready for new stairs on main house..
Vessel Traffic:  2 sport boats
 
Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past:  http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72

New Elephant seal

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Ecological Notes:Today, we have a new elephant seal. We now have three female with one new arrival. The new arrival is laying with its back up and chest down hard and it is difficult to identify the sex. Canada geese are nesting and we now have seven nests on the main island. Groups of pacific harbor porpoises were sited off the south side of the island. DND had one blast.

Elephant seal pups:4 swimming at night. Spending lots of time on the boat ramp testing the waters.
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Facility Work: Lots of  indoor repairs and cleaning.
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Vessel Traffic: 1 Eco tour boat.
Weather Events:Grey day and rain.
Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past:  http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72
 

Female elephant seal

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Another female elephant seal arrived and we now have three molting on the island..
Elephant seal pups: The four pups are getting closer to the water.
Canada geese. The geese are nesting. Some have laid eggs already. The river otter is trying to find the nests as are the gulls. The geese are getting aggressive to anything that gets close to the nests.
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Visitors:10
Pearson College students over to study shoreline invertebrates. With the moon getting fuller the tides are very high and very low. This makes for perfect beach walking and shoreline classes for the students.
Facility Work With the help of a couple students, the cleaning continues on the sides of building today.
Vessel Traffic Three Eco-tour boats doing respectful viewing.
Weather Events:Flat water and light wind
Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past:  http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72
 

Elephant seal active after 4 day nap

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Ecological Notes:

Lots of eagles today. Elephant seal still very active and moving around the island.

Vessel Traffic: One Eco Tour boat one private boat in the reserve.

Facility Work: Fuel and supplies brought to island today.

Weather Events: Warm in the sun with a light west wind.

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

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

 

 

4 Elephant seal pups remain

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Well I was wrong. I should have spent more time looking for the injured elephant seal pup my bad. We still have 4 elephant seal pups on the Island. The one female elephant seal did leave boat ramp. Some of the southern resident L pod where west bound passing by Saturday in the morning. Heard that J and K pod were coming my way. So I stay up on top of the light till dusk looking no luck spotting them.

Wind is from the west this morning steady 22knots and raining.