flasher injury | Race Rocks Ecological Reserve-

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.

: Sleepy california sea lion

: Sea lions on middle rock

: These guys will sleep anywhere! (1)

: (2)

: Mt. Baker (US) on a clear day (1)

: (2)

: California sea lion

: Sunset before a harvest moon

: Smoke rising from a controlled burn on DND land

: One of the few remaining gull chicks “peeping” for food

: A flock of unidentified birds passed over today

: Large swells over the south island on a stormy evening

: A spider hiding in the firewood pile

: Autumn sunsets on RR are the most beautiful

: Stellar sea lion with fishing gear injury (swallowed a hooked fish)

: Retrieved flasher (found on ground today)

: The solar array on top of the RR power building

: Sea lion fur now accumulating on the ground this time of year creates felted areas

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: