Tag Archives: elephant seal

Whales! (and census)

Gallery

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This gallery contains 4 photos.

Weather:  Visibility: Very clear, 15 miles Wind: 15-25 knots Sky: Mostly clear, some clouds Water: Choppy, white caps Boats/Visitors:  Today a contractor visited to fix our internet/ phone cable in the main residence. At the same time Corey, two BC … Continue reading →

Big Seals, Many Seagulls

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Weather:

  • Visibility: 50m, very heavy fog
  • Wind: 20-25kn
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Choppy

Boats/Visitors:

We have had no visitors over the last few days.

Ecological:

A large male elephant seal has been resting on land for the last day and a half. This morning we noticed another, larger in size, has joined him.

The two moulting females are still here. We’ve been noticing a few harbour seals every day. Yesterday afternoon, we were able to get a picture of a sea lion with an interesting color.

The seagull activity has increased. They remain protective of their nests, and as they continue to lay eggs and establish nests it’s becoming harder to freely move around the island.

 

Spotted: Turkish Marsh Gladiolus!

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Weather:

  • Visibility: 5 miles
  • Wind: 12 knots
  • Sky: Overcast in the morning, clearer skies in the second half of the day
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors:

Greg came again on Tuesday to bring us more water, we get a few hundred litres per load so our main water tank is over half full again. There has been a steady trickle of tour/whale watching boats, approximately 10-15 per day.

Ecological:

The two moulting elephant seals are still here, and they appear to be in less pain and are doing well.

The seagulls continue to get more and more aggressive, we’ve noticed that their eggs go missing. Yesterday, near the main path to the jetty there was a nest containing one egg and a territorial pair of gulls. Today, they are off the nest and the egg is missing.

Near desalination building we found a great example of what appears to be Gladiolus Imbricatus in bloom. According to a previous log post by Garry Fletcher: “Originally from south-eastern Europe/Turkey, it was introduced in the garden of an early lightkeeper and has been growing unattended here for over 50 years.”

While doing our daily seawater salinity and temperature sample, we were able to get a great picture of two sea lions on the jetty that were basking in the evening sun.

Wind, Fog, and Eggs!

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Weather: 

  • Visibility varied today. This evening visibility is excellent, 10-13 miles. This afternoon we were surrounded by fog and could not see even nearby north rock (less than 1 mile).
  • Wind this evening is blowing 30-40 knots. This morning was calmer, 12 knots.
  • Sky clear. This was interrupted mid afternoon by thick fog.
  • Water white capping and breaking into spindrift.

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Today was fairly quiet, with only a few whale watching boats in the morning which seemed to mostly keep a good distance. Greg visited this afternoon to deliver water as we are still waiting for the new desalinator. A former student visited as well.
  • The swiftsure international sailing race passed Race Rocks on Saturday, so we have been seeing the boats trickle back towards Victoria over the past couple of days.
  • Yesterday we spotted a rental boat from Pedder Bay Marina attempt to pass through the channel between our main island and the south islands.
  • Lately whale watching boats have been present viewing the elephant seals and sea lions. Many have appeared to be well within the 100m distance from sea lions required by DFO.

Whale watching boat disturbs sea lions on jetty

Whale watching boat approaches sea lions on rocks

Ecological: 

  • Two evenings past we noticed the first seagull eggs of the season. We noticed that one nest was missing its egg the next morning. The seagulls have become quite aggressive towards us but only if we get too close to their nest by accident.
  • There are still four elephant seals on the island, two moulting, the juvenile male from this past spring, and an older female.
  • The sea lions have remained on the SE side of the island, although fewer than what we were seeing before surrounding our jetty. They have been enjoying surfing the waves periodically.
  • Another oyster catcher nest spotted on the SW side.
  • We have been finding dead seagulls presumably killed by the bald eagles that have been hanging around. They especially like to sit on top of camera three.

Seagull guarding its egg and nest.

Other: 

  • Except for in the occasional presence of fog, we have been able to operate the island completely with solar on clear days.
  • We were in need of batteries so missed a few days of salinity/temperature data collection.

Jumping Into the Deep End

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Weather 

Visibility: 5-10 miles

Wind: Less than one knot

Sky: Overcast with lots of fog

Water: Calm

 

Boats/Visitors: 

This morning students from the college took a dive into the deep end and swam from our jetty back to Pearson’s dock. Along with the swimmers, early this morning we greeted their coach, a team of Pearson staff supporting them in multiple vessels, as well as a team of kayakers to accompany them and a military college vessel.

We have observed very few whale watching boats over the past few days. It has been very foggy.

Over the past few days we have had groups of students visit with their families and a couple of outside groups as well.

Swimmers, safety boat, and accompanying kayakers.

Quite a few kayakers started their journey to rack rocks at 05:30 this morning, just in time to be greeted by the sea lions waking up.

 

Ecological: 

The two families of geese are still on Race Rocks, with the older gaggle starting to learn how to swim! The nest outside our door appears to have been abandoned after the seagulls cracked the eggs last week.

The elephant seals are starting to leave, only 4 were counted these past couple of days, two moulting. The larger elephant seal with one cloudy eye is gone.

Fewer sea lions lately, but with a lot of visitors it seems that most of them moved to the SE side of the island, away from the busy jetty. As well, there has been some very loud DND blasting.

We spotted an oyster catcher nest on the NE side of the main residence. Currently there are two eggs but one appears to be cracked.

Oyster catcher nest nestled in the rocks.

 

Still haven’t seen any seagull eggs, although they continue to seem less and less afraid of us as they build their nests.

Census Report:

115 seagulls

9 sea lions

7 geese, 12 goslings

2 seals

4 oyster catchers

Barn Swallows

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SW
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • had a little tour from the college come by this morning
  • the day before there were a couple of people from UVIC setting up equipment to monitor earthquake activity

Maintenance

  • The blue water tank at the side of the house is being cleaned out and filled at the college and will be transported here to fill up our freshwater tank until we get a new desalinator put in place

Ecological

  • Maybe 15 stellers and 30 Californias around, the numbers have gone down
  • two adorable little barn swallows have been hanging around the house
  • 11 elephants, the numbers will be dropping soon as everyone has finished molting and will need to go hunting soon
  • a couple of hundred pigeon guillemots around today
  • about 8 oystercatchers who should be setting up their nests soon
  • still around 16 geese and at least 14 goslings, three nests hatched
  • a few hundred seagulls buildings their nests
  • the cormorants and harbour seals are sticking to the outer rocks
  • two bald eagles out on north rock today

Other

  • was stuck in a fog bank yesterday and it has been very cloudy today so I will run the generator a bit
  • I leave on Tuesday and our new eco-guardians Mara and Kai will be taking over for the summer

Barn Swallows on the deck railing

Goslings

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Summer has really set in and there will be all kinds of boats going by for the next few months

Maintenance

  • Just attempting to clean out our water tank on the side of the house so we can get some fresh water brought to race rocks, top up our fresh water tank

Ecological

  • Still not a lot of sea lions around
  • there is still 12 elephant seals, a couple of them are scattered around but most of them are basking in the sun on the platform
  • there is a total of 14 goslings, the last nest only had two of them hatch which was interesting because I hadn’t addled that nest
  • the seagulls are in the process of building their nests and the oyster catchers look like they might be nesting soon too

Beautiful weather

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • A lot of tour boats the past few days

Maintenance

  • With the amount of seagulls lately the solar panels need to get scrubbed more often

Ecological

  • Not a lot of sea lions lately, but still around 12 elephant seals, since the pup left
  • I think all of the goslings that escaped addling have hatched and I’m sure that is the last of goose nesting season
  • the seagulls are starting to build their nests but have not gotten really aggressive yet

More goslings

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • A lot of tour boats around today in this beautiful weather, although not much traffic on those last couple windy days we had

Maintenance

  • A couple new goose nests popped up so those have been taken care of although there are about 3 nests that were too far along to addle and two of nests have hatched, the third one will hatch any day now and we expect that to be the last of the nests that will hatch this season

Ecological

  • My baby Nemo left this morning, it was definitely past the date we had expected him to leave elephant seals don’t typically stick around past 3 months of age but he had been here for almost 4 months, elephant seal pups also typically leave together when they are born in the same rookery but these two left weeks apart.
  • Still 12 elephant seals around going through the molting process, a couple of them have completed molting
  • the pigeon guillemots are here today
  • I heard there might be two otters out in the north kelp patch now but have not confirmed
  • Also saw a humpback yesterday, first one I’ve seen in a while

Busy weekend

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Was quite busy this weekend but things have calmed down a bit now

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SE
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • The couple who will be taking the summer shift came by today for a little orientation, ran them through some of the chores we do here and will get more training time when we switch mid May
  • beautiful out the last couple days since the wind calmed down, there has been plenty of boats around

Maintenance

  • The solar panels really need to be scrubbed, I will try get that done tomorrow morning before the sun comes up, they are very difficult to clean when the sun is beating down on them

Ecological

  • 14 elephant seals, the pup is still here
  • very few sea lions, around 100 of them, seems to be an even mix of stellar and californias
  • about 12 geese around and 7 goslings so far
  • a couple hundred pigeon guillemots around today
  • about 6 oystercatchers, they will probably start nesting soon
  • a little group of harlequins around along with about 200 gulls that are starting to build their nests as well
  • there is at least 50 harbour seals on the outer rocks  and that’s about it for a rough census