Tag Archives: elephant seal

FOER Trip

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Light to Moderate Easterly winds. Periods of heavy rain. Force 2-3.
Barometer is on the rise. The forecast is for West wind tomorrow.

Tour boas: 5
Other boats: 3 recreational fisherman transited the reserve

I saw two Canada goose goslings today, the first hatchlings of the season. I still don’t know what nest they came from, but I think it must be from a super sneaky nest that I hadn’t been able to find. Another group of Canada geese arrived along with a single White Fronted goose. The Elephant seals are still camped out in front of the Keeper’s House. Several seals spent much of the day in the shallows next to the jetty. Maybe it was because of the rainy weather, but by the end of the day all the seals were all piled up together. I think they separate from each other when it gets hot. The Eagles are out in force and actively pursuing Gulls. We watched an Eagle chase a Gull (with black under wings?) for a couple minutes, the Gull got away. That same Eagle took a dive for the Canada goose goslings. There were lots of Guillemots in the reserve today, but no sign of the Cormorants.

Chris dropped off Garry Fletcher along with the ‘Friends of Ecological Reserves’ trip for several hours today.

Elephant seal tag: green 7688

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Clear skies.  Light Easterly wind all day. Beaufort Force 2-3
A beautiful day in the Reserve, but the barometer is falling and there is a front forecasted for tomorrow.
[I’m trying to learn the Beaufort wind scale off the top of my head, and get into the habit of checking the barometric tendency so that will be part of my weather log from now on]

I was sitting on the South edge of Great Race when an Elephant seal popped up to look at me and had what appeared to be a radio transmitter on its back. It promptly disappeared, but came up the boat ramp an hour later. I’m keen to find out if the researchers retrieved the transmitter and have the track of this seal. I am really curious about where these Northern-living Northern Elephant seals go when they are not in the reserve.

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Generator Repair

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Light wind and clear skies for most of the day. Picked up to strong North-East/ East winds with rain this evening. This wind direction makes the South-East door whistle like crazy. The water is a total mess right now.

5 tour boats

DND blasting: several small blasts in the morning. 3 loud ones in the afternoon.

Erik brought Ric the electrician out with the new voltage regulator this morning. It took some fiddling, but the generator is back in working order. I ran it today for a few hours, along with the desalinator. Happy to be able to do some laundry.

The Elephant seals put on a good show for Ric. There are 8 seals lounging next to the pathways between the boat shed and energy building. They are the strangest creatures to live with. There is one juvenile that is getting  bolder with each day, slowly making it further up the path towards where all the other seals are piled up next to the hose box. There is one with scabby-molt that always stays apart from the group and avoids any seals that come to visit. There is one large adult seal that seems to be blind in one eye; it’s left eye has a hollow, white look to it. One seal has a flipper tag, but I couldn’t get a photo of it. Will try again tomorrow.

Summer shift change has been organized. Julie Bowser will be returning for her third shift starting mid-June and ending in late August.

Cackling goose and Snow goose

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Light Wind in the morning, String Westerly in the evening. Cloudy with scattered showers. Rain in the evening. Tour boats:8 1030 flyover by a small float plane The Cackling Goose and Snow Goose (note — a new record for Race Rocks ) are still foraging on the grass on Great Race. The Canada Geese often chase these two smaller geese. The Sea lions all moved to the East side of West Rocks this morning. Up until today, they had been on South Rocks since I got here in the middle of March. Eagles are regularly flying over Great Race and making all the Gulls take flight, but I have yet to see an Eagle grab a Gull.

-Ran the fire pump -Cleaned all the fire hose fittings -Fixed tank shed storage door latch -Worked on SOPs

Power Restrictions

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Cloudy with scattered showers. Strong West wind in the evening.

4 tour boats

I spent the day with Aileen and her advisee group. Because there were 10 students (with all of their associated electronic equipment) the breaker on the inverter to the science house was tripped last night which resulted in a total electrical shut-down of the Science house where everyone was staying.  Our system and these old houses are just not meant for that much of a power draw. Because of that little power outage, the morning was spent showing them about the energy and resource systems on Race Rocks, with a strong emphasis on living within reasonable means, especially when in a remote place like this. My solution to the excessive use of power was to only allow them to use 2 plugs in the house to charge computers and phones. I think (hope) it turned into an unexpected team building exercise where they had to charge things minimally and barter for plug-time. Either way, it meant that we didn’t have any more power issues for the rest of their stay and it is something that I will implement for future groups.

I counted 13 Elephant seals on Middle rock. They return to Race Rocks for a few months in Spring to moult. Although they look absolutely terrible when they are moulting, it is a natural process that they undergo every year.

 

 

Sea Scouts

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Moderate West wind, easing in the afternoon. Low West swell. Patchy clouds.

A group of sea scouts came out for a tour today. They left out of Victoria Harbour on a schooner called Passing Cloud (Operated by Outer Shores Expeditions). They spent a couple hours on the island. Learning about the animals, the history of Race Rocks, and taking a look at the world from the top of the lighthouse.

Calm Saturday

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Light variable winds most of the day. Four brief periods of rain, clear skies in between. Very low West swell. Rainbows.

6 tour boats
2 dive boats

I spent some time today trying to learn to use the Nikon DSLR that lives out here at Race Rocks. The zoom on the big lens is awesome, but I still have a few technical issues to work out. My mission was to get a photo of a Pigeon Guillemot flying away from me with its red feet sticking out, but I wasn’t happy with any of my attempts. While wandering around looking for things to photograph I saw 10-15 Turnstones. They are spending most of their time in the middle of Great Race. There was 4 Western Sandpipers, 1 Sanderling, and 2 Dunlins all feeding in the muck-puddles on Great Race.The Elephant seal that has been next to the tank shed left this morning, but there are still two out on Middle Rocks. There are a few monster Steller Sea lions among the group out on South Rocks. There are now three Canada Goose nests, all with eggs in them.

Spring Equinox

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Clear skies. Variable North-East to South-East winds.
Waning gibbous moon, only one low day-time tide (~1m), and 4 to 5 kt currents.

I’m a day late, but Spring has officially arrived as determined by the sun crossing over the celestial equator.
There was a lot of Harbour seals out on Middle and Turbine rocks today. The Elephant seals are on the West Rocks. The Sea lions are still out on South Rocks. There was a large group of Harlequin ducks (14) in the water off the East beach. Cormorants were arriving in the reserve all day so assume my count dramatically under-estimates their numbers. The Canada geese with the nest next to the Keeper’s house have two eggs now. None of the other pairs of Geese seem to have settled enough to have eggs. The gulls are starting to pair up and settle into nesting spots. Amazingly, there were 7 Bald Eagles in the Reserve this morning. Most of them were sitting in pairs on the tops of various rocks. They were a fairly even mix of juveniles and adults. I saw a few sandpiper-like birds, but they were too fast for me to photograph or properly identify. Judging by the smell coming from the tank shed walkway, there is still a River otter living out here. And I saw some Scoters in the mouth of Pedder Bay on my way into the college this morning.

2 Tour boats

First Day of Spring Animal Census

Steller Sea lion: 31
California Sea lion: 6
Elephant seal: 3
Harbour seal: 144
Cormorant: 54
Gull: 133
Canada Goose: 15
Harlequin duck: 17
Black turnstone: 5
Unidentified sandpiper: 3
Oyster catcher: 6
Bald eagle: 7
Savannah sparrow:4
Pigeon Guillemots: 25
River otter: 1

Off station today from 0830 to 1030 to get keys and dive gear.
-fixed sagging corner on crane deck/walkway
-checked/cleaned Science House propane cleanout

West winds, Blasting

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The weather this week has shifted to predominantly W and SW with a few nights of winds over 40 NMPH. There have been some big swells rolling in several days this week.  This morning there is a 30 NMPH NE wind blowing 4 foot waves into the jetty but it is forecast to swing back to west this evening. The west wind has brought much warmer temperatures than the previous week.

There has been ongoing military blasting on Bentinck Island this week with some particularly heavy blasts occurring Monday. The images above were captured from video taken on Monday.
sub-7714
There has also been regular navy activity in the Straight including a submarine that passed by on the 14th

2 juvenile-7706

eagles-7682
There have been lots of Bald Eagles in the reserve lately, they have been feeding regularly on the dead sealion in the East bay.

The pup has been much more adventurous lately. He has been moving around the island and has shown an interest in muddy puddles which he seems to have some trouble getting himself out of as he is slippery, still quite chubby and building his strength. Chunk went off island yesterday evening and is back today. He mostly ignores the pup but has occasionally pursued the pup, putting his head and mouth on the pup but without causing harm. The pup squawks and moves away and that seeems to be the end of it.

Went off island on Wednesday afternoon for supplies. On Friday I picked up four guests from Pearson College and brought them to the island for the weekend.

-finished replacing bad drain pipes in main house basement, clean up
-picked up backup Honda water pump and other supplies from College
-cleaning and fixing up assist house, added shelf for VHF regulated power supply box
-have been in touch with faculty regarding planning for a student group to RR for Project Week
-communications with inverter mechanic and about wood stove
-cut, chopped, stacked fire wood