Tag Archives: erica

Saturday Census, Storm Brewing

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Weather Today: 

  • Sky intermittently foggy, clear (dark clouds blowing in from W)
  • Visibility 10-15 NM
  • Wind 25-35 Knots NW
  • Sea state: white caps, 2-3 foot chop

No visitors today. A few eco-tourism boats , 1 pleasure craft, and a large group of kayakers in the mid afternoon passed through the reserve.

Yesterday we glanced a humpback whale outside the reserve in the early morning. We have seen far fewer whales inside of the reserve as compared to last year’s fall (none!).

Census: 

  • 1 Elephant seal (GE103)
  • 16 Canada geese
  • 127 Glaucous-winged gulls
  • 633 California gulls
  • 3 Savannah sparrows
  • 2 Black turnstones
  • 1 Black oystercatcher (spotted amongst a group of gulls!)
  • 49 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 19 Harbour seals
  • 511 California sea lions
  • 128 Stellar Sea lions

A Busy Week: Entanglements, Fall Weather

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Weather:

  • Sky overcast
  • Visibility 1-10 NM – intermittent fog with a consistent layer of wildfire smoke
  • Wind 5-15 knots W
  • Calm water, rippled surface

Visitors/Traffic: 

  • One contractor visited the island yesterday, along with Greg and Lawrence the day previous.
  • Minimal tourism and pleasure craft activity (5-10 boats coming through daily)
  • Today Marine Mammal Rescue and DFO visited the reserve by water to look for entangled sea lions that had been reported to DFO. Unfortunately we were not able to spot the animals reported. Despite multiple vessels, the view from the lighthouse, and even a drone!

Ecological Observations: 

  • The increase in sea lions seems to be slowing and tapering off. Wherever there is available space, they haul out and fight for the best place to rest.
  • The elephant seal ‘Erica’ GE103 is still sticking around, and spends most of her time resting near the base of the jetty.
  • We noticed a robin hopping around on the grass yesterday but unfortunately didn’t get a picture.
  • We did see one sea lion with an entanglement injury on Sunday evening. It was the same one reported to DFO by a visitor in the reserve (boating past). We were not able to spot him again, and today we found the flasher which had been hanging from his mouth on the ground.

Sea Lions and Saturday Census

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, some intermittent rain
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 0-10 knots W-SW
  • Sea state: calm, fast moving currents this week

Ecological: 

  • We were excited to see not one but two brown pelicans during our census today!
  • A pod of orcas passed by near Bentick I. in late afternoon.
  • The sea lion population has exploded over this week. We counted a total 1050 today, compared to only 480 one week ago.

Census: 

  • 46 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 3 Double crested cormorants
  • 32 Black oyster catchers
  • 19 Surfbirds
  • 40 Black turnstones
  • 2 Savannah sparrows
  • 5-10 Song sparrows
  • 277 Stellar sea lions
  • 773 California sea lions
  • 21 Canada geese
  • 2 Brown pelicans
  • 4 orcas (just outside of the reserve)
  • 1 Elephants seal (E103)
  • 71 Harbour seals
  • 230 Misc. Seagulls
  • 1 Sea otter (Ollie)

Stormy Seas

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Weather:

  • Sky partly cloudy, sun/blue sky
  • Visibility 15 NM
  • Wind 26-30 knots W
  • Sea state: swells up to 5 m (high enough to cover the south islands!)

Visitors: 

  • Greg visited briefly yesterday to top up supplies before the stormy weather
  • Yesterday morning a coastguard team arrived by helicopter to do some work on the lighthouse

Ecological Observations: 

  • The sea lions and other animals have come further onto land than usual, presumably because of the stormy seas. Interestingly, the seagulls species have been mixing and not fighting at all as they need to remain closer together in the tough weather.
  • There have been quite a few more geese over the past few days. They have been enjoying the puddles created by the rain and grazing the greener areas now that the gull nesting season is over.

Sun Before the Storm

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Weather: 

  • Sky clear, blue
  • Visibility 15+ miles
  • Wind 0-15 knots W, NW
  • Sea state: calm
  • We are preparing for a large amount of rain over the next few days. Every year the “first big rain” on the west coast is quite an event!

Visitors: 

  • Today Greg visited with supplies for the island and contractors
  • Few whale watching boats now that school in Canada is back in session.

Ecological Observations: 

  • There have been quite a few more stellar sea lions this week. We will be completing our census tomorrow, weather permitting- we’ll see what the numbers show! (last week the fog delayed our census significantly)
  • The bird life has continued to change daily, with many sparrows and gulls migrating with the seasons. The pelican spotted previously stayed in the reserve for a couple of days but we did not see it today.
  • We observed a small pod of orcas passing outside of reserve yesterday evening. We have been seeing fewer humpback whales in the strait this week.
  • Elephant seal E103, or “Erica” has been enjoying the jetty with the sea lions. When we fence the island to prevent damage due to the sealions arriving we are mindful to leave space for the elephant seals to move through the island freely (the fence is high enough for them to pass underneath). Notably, Erica has chosen to remain with the sea lions nearer the jetty, as opposed to her preferred grassy areas at other times of the year. We wonder if she like the company, or if there may be a more survival based explanation for this behavior.

Other notes: 

  • As wet winter weather approaches we have been mindful to collect firewood and store it in the dry areas available to ensure dry heat throughout the winter. It is still necessary to use the diesel furnace as it distributes heat to all areas of the residence but the dry heat from the woodstove just can’t be beat! This wood is collected from the ocean as winds in the winter season push logs fallen from barges into the jetty waters.

 

Break in Foggy Weather: Census + Pelican!

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, some sun and blue sky
  • Visibility 10-12 NM
  • Wind 20-15 knots W
  • Sea state: fast moving currents, still fairly flat despite wind

The fog horn continued for 20+ hrs each day until today. For most of this week we have had less than 100m visibility, making it impossible to see even a boat passing through race passage or the end of the jetty. At some points, we could barely see the guest house from the main residence! It can be difficult to focus and/or work productively during these long periods of fog, as the fog horn sounds three long high-pitched “beeps” every 45 seconds. More info on the history of Race Rocks foghorns Here!

Visitors: 

  • There have not been any visitors to race rocks since Monday when Greg and a contractor stopped in briefly.
  • There have been 1-2 tour boats in the reserve daily, but we can often hear them before we see them in the fog. The sea lions are easily startled by them because of the limited visibility, and sometimes when the boats emerge from the fog the sea lions run into the water.

Ecological Observations: 

  • The sea lions have officially taken over the island! We have been dutifully repairing the electric fences daily to keep them from damaging the buildings and especially from disrupting the burial cairns.
  • There have been an incredible amount of interesting birds to observe this week, despite the weather. Today we saw a pelican while enjoying the sunshine right from our back porch! This is a new sighting for us at Race Rocks and we were quite ecstatic.
  • On the note of bird sightings, we are hopeful for the installation of a new bird tracking device on Race Rocks sometime soon which will allow us to view migratory birds passing through the reserve as it detects their tracking bands.
  • One of our favorite elephant seals, E103 or “Erica” has returned again. We were happy to see her looking healthy yesterday- she had been hiding behind the piles of sea lions, and we only saw her once we had shooed them to install more electric fencing.
  • Identifying gulls is incredibly difficult. Some of them look the same aside from a slight wing color difference or color of feet determining them as a separate species! We are wondering if the gulls we have been assuming to be non-breeding california gulls are actually thayer’s gulls. Back to the id books!

Census:

  • 96 Stellar sea lions
  • 383 California sea lions
  • 88 Harbour seals
  • 1 Elephant seal
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 52 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 1 Brown Pelican
  • 1 Oregon junco
  • 2 Fox sparrows
  • 15 Savannah sparrows
  • 1 Yellow-rumped warbler
  • 1 Short billed dowitcher
  • 14 Black turnstones
  • 8 Canada geese
  • 320 Glaucous winged gulls
  • 113 California gulls
  • 20 Heerman’s gulls