Tag Archives: fog

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.

A foggy 48 hours

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Weather

  • Visibility: <1 mile
  • Wind: 20-30 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Ripply
  • The island has been shrouded in dense fog for the last 48 hours and the fog horn has been going off continuously

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • The fog has reduced the number of whale watching boats in the area, or at least I cannot see many due to the fog.

Marine mammals

  • The harbour seals have really taken to liking the little rocky beach on the southeast side of the island. These days you can spot about 20 of them on the rocks there, including the pups – although I have only seen one pup over the last few days, not sure where the second one went.

Monday

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-30 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy to dense fog in the late afternoon
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • a few ecotours went by today
  • Guy, came by with a few guys to start moving out the old batteries so the new batteries will hopefully be lifted off the concrete soon and we won’t have to run the generator as much

Ecological

  • Still a dozen elephants, one young male among all the females

 

Visitors

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-25 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • a lot of ecotours along with sailboats and fishing boats out today
  • I have a group of students staying in the student house tonight

Ecological

  • still a dozen elephant seals, one male among them
  • looks like the sea otter was out in the kelp again today, I can only tell because ecotour boats kept circling the kelp patch

Other

  • Fog horn started going off at 1am last night and continued until maybe 7 this morning

So Much Fog

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-25 SW
  • Sky: From dense fog to sunshine throughout the day
  • Water: A bit wavy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • the middle of the day was nice so there were quite a few boats out
  • Guy stopped by today to get the big fuel tank

Ecological

  • Total of 9 female elephants and one young male
  • the geese I think are done laying eggs, but I’m not totally sure
  • it also looks like their might be some oyster catcher nests around, need to take a closer look

Other

  • the fog was pretty dense my fog horn was going off from 10pm last night to 7am this morning and again around 8-9 or 10am

 

Census and Fog

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles, fog a few times throughout the day
  • Wind: 15-35 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • a few ecotours went by today

Ecological

  • there were quite a few californias on the jetty
  • there is one young male in the about 9 elephant seals, photos included

Census

  • stellar sea lions – 38
  • california sea lions – 25
  • harbour seals – 32
  • elephant seals – 9 female 1 male
  • gulls – 150
  • cormorants – 28
  • pigeon guillemots – 50
  • black turnstones – 18
  • harlequinn ducks – 0
  • oyster catchers – 14
  • fox sparrows – 8
  • geese – 16

Elephant Seal Duo

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Weather

  • Visibility: mostly clear in the day with fog and a bit of snow in the evening
  • Wind: Light gusts throughout the day
  • Sky: Cloudy with sunny periods
  • Water: a bit rough, 1 meter swells at times

Boats/Visitors

  • had the usual ‘4 ever wild’ whale watching boat go by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Still a decent amount of sea lions on and around the island.
  • The two big male elephant seals have been mostly keeping their distance from each other but today Bernard, the larger of the two, asserted a bit of dominance by moving closer inland towards Big George, the smaller of the two.

Other

  • DND blasting has taken a break for the past few weeks which has been nice.

Stellar Pups

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles for most of the day with the Washington coast as clear as I’ve seen it so far, until early evening when fog came in from the east covering downtown Victoria from view.
  • Wind: Little to no breeze during the day with it picking up to 14-18 knots by 7pm.
  • Sky: Mostly cloudy with some sun
  • Water: calm throughout the day, a bit choppy at times

Boats/Visitors

  • Boat traffic was fairly minimum today with the usual commercial vessels in the distance and one or two whale watching boats.
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • There seems to be more stellar sea lion pups on the island, especially on the south rocks in the last few days, though I may just have not noticed them among the “piles” of bodies as they tend to lay all over each other.
  • Still lots of Black Turnstones, Cormorants, Eagles, Canada Geese and Gulls around
  • Only saw one of the male elephant seals around today

Other

  • Chopped some bigger logs into kindling for the woodstove this afternoon and cleaned up a lot of rocks of varying sizes that have been falling from the paths and bank walls between the lighthouse and science house.
  • Pretty chilly today, had frost on the ground and frozen puddles for the first time.

Weather

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Weather
  • Visibility: 0 Miles in the morning 15 in the afternoon
  • Wind:  0-15 SW
  • Sky: cloudy for the most part, bit of sun came through
  • Water: a bit choppy today

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few boats cruise by

Ecological

  • same amount of sea lions, no elephant seals yet

Notes

  • had a good amount of fog in the morning, went away in the afternoon