Tag Archives: elephant seal male

Facility Work Friday

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Happy Friday! I can’t believe today is already the last day of May, I feel like I just got back out here and now I only have a few days left!

Greg came over this morning with the Ocean Network Canada team who is working on the CODAR unit here. While they got to work, Greg, myself, and the new eco guardian (who will be starting after me) also got to work.

We managed to get quite a lot done (see list below) before the tide started dropping the everyone had to head out. This includes the highlight of my day which was Greg putting together my brand new herding board! Well…brand new to Race Rocks at least and hand made from repurposed materials!

Herding boards are typically used on farms to move pigs and other small animals from one area to another but I’ve used them for years when working in marine mammal rescue and they’re very effective with pinnipeds. It’s essentially an intimidating barrier between the person and the animal which makes moving them safer and in my experience more efficient.  I’ve been eyeing a piece of plywood in the basement of the student house for a while and today Greg found the perfect handles. The next few days are supposed to be rainy so if I’m feeling creative I may have to paint it too.

I got to test it out when one of the female elephant seals was blocking the path today which became a hazard for all our guests on site. It worked like a charm and she found the board very offensive so quickly moved off the path and went down to take a swim.

The male elephant seal is still here and massive as ever – he is not an animal I would use a herding board with or ever attempt to move. He moves about as he pleases around here and if he is blocking a path then I find a different one.

I think this is what people refer to as “a face only a mother could love”

Facility Work:

  • Cleaned solar panels
  • Repaired electric fence
  • Topped up battery electrolytes
  • Worked on desalinator
  • Fuel transfer up to generator building
  • Replaced main house propane tanks

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

Animal Census and Blog

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The great weather had to come to an end eventually! Despite being a dark and cloudy day we lucked out with no rain and no wind.

I had 9 extra helpers for the animal census today, the Pearson students are extra observant so this may be the most accurate count yet!

No sea otters were seen today but the two new ones have been around the past few days. Still no additional elephant seals on the main island, just our solo male! A couple of females have been hauled out on the various surrounding rocks but none of come ashore here.

March 20th Animal Census:

Birds:

Oyster catcher: 15
Harlequin duck: 12
Gulls: 261
Cormorant: 62
Pigeon guillemot: 149
Juvenile eagle: 3
Adult eagle: 4
Canadian geese: 9
Shore birds: 10
Turnstones: 28
Savannah sparrow: 1

Marine Mammals:

Steller sea lions: 17
Harbour seal: 64
Male Elephant seal: 1
Female elephant seal : 2 (north rocks)
California sea lion: 20

Injuries:
Harbour seal with facial injury


DND Activity:

  • 2 blasts at 12:55 and 13:00. They did startle the harbour seals and the second blast sent a California sea lion fleeing into the water.
  • 3rd blast at 14:15 no obvious disturbance noted. 
  • 4th blast at 15:05 no obvious disturbance noted.
  • 5th blast at 15:08 no obvious disturbance noted.

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • One ecotourism vessel
  • One Coast Guard vessel
  • Three RCMP vessels

 

 

Weather Events:

  • Wednesday, March 20:
    • Sky: Cloudy all day
    • Wind: High of WNW 13 knots, Low of  SW 4 knots
    • Sea: Calm
    • Temperature: Low 8oC, High  10oC

** All wildlife 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?

Growing sea lion numbers…

Early Spring = Cleaning

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Ecological Notes:

  • The birds are starting to pair off …. Geese, Gulls, and Oyster Catchers most notably. Lots of Adult Bald Eagle courtship in the air.

  • Young adult Elephant Seal male arrived a few days ago. After resting a couple days, he has spent most of every night bellowing and calling from a high point on the island.

One of his favourite calling spots is right below the window!

Realizing the female is calling from the other side of the rise

  • One adult Female Elephant Seal has since come to the island. She moves towards the males calls, but retreats when he tries to approach her. I can only speculate that she instinctively wants to haul out for her moult with other seals, but feels he not big enough to breed with(?)

She calls out a lot as well

  • I’m hoping his calls may attract others to the island
  • Normally I just get reports of “Ollie” the Sea Otter, but while I was up by the north camera, I could see him just beyond  helicopter rock.

very far away

  • 4 Transient (Biggs) Orca travel through the northern edge of the reserve without cutting in to hunt. I watched from the north camera rock, to see if they might double back, but they continued east.

T019B “Galliano” … 28 year old male

Visitors:

  • 2 techs from the Coastguard returned to complete repairs to the fog horn.
  • The upcoming Eco-Guardian also visited for an overview of the Ecological Reserve and day to day operations.

Facility Work:

  • Added water to the cistern to allow more desalination to fill the main water tank.
  • Gathered all the  hose on the island to pressure wash the pier.
  • Tackled the rather daunting job of moving and bucking the very large logs collected when I had help to pull them out of the ocean.  Even with a good understanding of leverage and pivot points, these logs were a brute! Most were well over 12-16 inches in diameter, and the bucked sections were 400-500 lbs! Task was cut short by rain (and exhaustion!), but moved the next sections into place for  the first buck. Next will be moving them to the final bucking and splitting area up top.

DND events:

  • some blasting, some fires

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • Still occasional Eco-Tourism vessels

** All wildlife 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?

Census and censured

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Weather; beautifully calm most of the day. Sunny with the occasional cloud. Wind mostly southwest

Visitors to reserve: 1 kayaker at slack tide. Went around seal rocks. Caused a landslide of Stellar sea lions.

No eco-tourism boats. Maybe the whales were in a different area?

Work: finished cleaning the lamp room and started sweeping the lighthouse stairs. chopped wood. what kept me VERY busy was the energy system which was drawing 2 kW instead of 1.2 kW (our usual load). I spent several hours trying to find something using that much draw. I had to start the generator at about 6 a.m. as the battery voltage was very low (large draw continued all night). Then I thought running the desalinator might solve the problem but neither seemingly did. It continued drawing between 1.6 and 2.1 until 3 pm and then it went down to 1.2. Greg believes charging up the battery from the generator may have reset things?

Observations:

Census

Elephant seals 7 (the male juvenile was away for several days this week but is back on Great Race)

Stellar sea lions 51 on south islands, none on Great Race today but over the last week there have been one or two here

California sea lions 8 on Great Race

Seals 60 on middle rocks

Gulls (western, glaucous-winged ) 236 counted from the lamp room on the island this morning

Pigeon guillemot   210, a large raft of them off seal rocks

Eagles 2 adult 2 immature

Cormorants 16

cormorants, double crested and pelagic

Oyster Catchers estimate 20

Harlequin ducks saw 5

Turnstones 32 very rough estimate, there are 8 on the grassy area around the house

Savannah sparrows I only ever see 4 at once but I see them constantly, that’s why I guess 20

Surf birds so well camouflaged but I would guess 20?

The following were seen this past week but not today,

Marbled godwit

Brown headed cowbird

brown headed cowbird

Sea otter

sea otter!

Orcas, transient or Biggs

one female and young, one  or two males, one to three other adults

Birds I did not get a picture off but were here this week:

Northern Crow (today and yesterday, aggressively chased away!!)

Semipalmated plover x 1

purple martin x 1

 

CENSURED

it appears to me that the 6 moulting females may NOT be female. the 3 large adults appear female but the at least 2 of the 3 small may be male. Am I right?

Doesn’t this “female” appear male???

Here’s a female.

laughing?

Spring Showers Brought New Critters!

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Weather: 

  • Sky overcast
  • Visibility 10 NM
  • Wind 10-15 knots W
  • Sea state: calm

Boats/Visitors: 

  • One pleasure craft fishing within the reserve today. They did not have a visible number so we were unable to report to DFO.
  • Yesterday Greg brought water which we pumped into our storage tank

Ecological: 

  • Today a large male elephant seal arrived! He is huge!
  • The smaller female elephant seal has returned for a bit more R&R
  • There are now goslings! There was one nest behind the boat shed which we did not see before. This morning we noticed two little fluffy goslings peeking out. Adorable!
  • The oyster catchers have begun to lay eggs
  • The seagulls are also laying eggs in full force. The nests are becoming fully established all over the island. They have become more defensive of their areas, which means we need to cover up! One of their favorite defense tactics is flying above us and trying to hit us with their droppings.