Tag Archives: geese

Beautiful Spring Day

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Weather: 

  • Sky partly cloudy
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 10-15 knots SW
  • Sea state: calm, rippled

Visitors/Marine Traffic: One pleasure craft within the reserve yesterday

Ecological: 

  • There are now 5 goslings between 2 nests
  • There are 2 oyster catcher chicks (nest on E side of island). They are too elusive for our camera for now!
  • The garbage brought to the island by seagulls is increasing now that they are nesting and laying eggs
  • Yesterday we spotted a patch of broken seagull eggshells near the guest house. Our best guess: the gulls are already looting neighboring nests for food

 

Returning Sun, Census

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Weather: 

  • Visibility 15-20 NM
  • Sky partly cloudy clearing to blue sky
  • Wind 15-20 Knots W
  • Sea state: calm, rippled

Visitors/Marine Traffic:

  • No visitors
  • Yesterday we spotted a group of kayakers who had emailed to let us know they were coming: We tried to wave, but you were too far away to see us- hope you had a good paddle!

Ecological: 

  • The seagull population has skyrocketed this week, but still no fully constructed nests
  • The elephant seals have left now, aside from one. We anticipate that we may see a few large males in a month or so.

Census: 

  • 16 Geese
  • 8 Oystercatchers
  • 39 Sea Lions
  • 40 Harbor Seals
  • 1 Elephant Seal
  • 1 Bald Eagle
  • 580 Seagulls
  • 42 Pigeon Guillemots

Student Visit

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Sky: overcast
  • Wind: 15-20 kn NW
  • Water: Little choppy under 1 foot

Visitors/Boats: 

  • The past few days we have seen more pleasure crafts than tour boats and these pleasure crafts get way too close and I can never find them on the radio because it is very hard to know which channel they are on
  • A group students stayed Saturday night to film around the island looking at ecological impacts which around here are mostly due to sea lions trampling all the green and turning it into mud

Ecological

  • The little steller is still around, haven’t noticed any new injuries on any of the sea lions
  • the sea lion that was by the jetty before that seemed lethargic and didn’t really respond to people left for 2 maybe 3 days and is now back in the same spot and it is much more energetic and responsive than before
  • the number of sea lions seems to have gone up from the last census by about 100, will post more numbers below
  • I have been consistently seeing about two humpback whales per day

Maintenance

  • The fence now only needs typically one minor repair per day, the sea lions are getting used to staying away from it
  • I still need to stay on top of clearing them away from certain areas, they seem to not crowd the entrance to the generator room anymore or the burial cairns as much, but they have taken a strong liking to the grass around the lighthouse

Census

  • Sea Lions – 600, most of them are californias
  • Harbour Seals – 30
  • Gulls – 40
  • Canada Geese – 24
  • Fox Sparrow – 3
  • Turnstones – 30
  • Cormorants – 50
  • Sea Otter – 1
  • Humpback Whales – about 2 per day

Barn Swallows

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 SW
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • had a little tour from the college come by this morning
  • the day before there were a couple of people from UVIC setting up equipment to monitor earthquake activity

Maintenance

  • The blue water tank at the side of the house is being cleaned out and filled at the college and will be transported here to fill up our freshwater tank until we get a new desalinator put in place

Ecological

  • Maybe 15 stellers and 30 Californias around, the numbers have gone down
  • two adorable little barn swallows have been hanging around the house
  • 11 elephants, the numbers will be dropping soon as everyone has finished molting and will need to go hunting soon
  • a couple of hundred pigeon guillemots around today
  • about 8 oystercatchers who should be setting up their nests soon
  • still around 16 geese and at least 14 goslings, three nests hatched
  • a few hundred seagulls buildings their nests
  • the cormorants and harbour seals are sticking to the outer rocks
  • two bald eagles out on north rock today

Other

  • was stuck in a fog bank yesterday and it has been very cloudy today so I will run the generator a bit
  • I leave on Tuesday and our new eco-guardians Mara and Kai will be taking over for the summer

Barn Swallows on the deck railing

Goslings

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NW
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Summer has really set in and there will be all kinds of boats going by for the next few months

Maintenance

  • Just attempting to clean out our water tank on the side of the house so we can get some fresh water brought to race rocks, top up our fresh water tank

Ecological

  • Still not a lot of sea lions around
  • there is still 12 elephant seals, a couple of them are scattered around but most of them are basking in the sun on the platform
  • there is a total of 14 goslings, the last nest only had two of them hatch which was interesting because I hadn’t addled that nest
  • the seagulls are in the process of building their nests and the oyster catchers look like they might be nesting soon too

Goslings

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • No visitors but quite a few tour boats

Maintenance

  • Just trying to fill up the water tank before guests come to stay in the guest house for a few nights

Ecological

  • The eggs hatched a little sooner than planned, so I missed addling that nest, but the goslings are pretty cute, there are a total of 8 nests this year, as far as I have seen
  • still 13 elephant seals here, the male pup is still around too and most of the elephants have started molting

13 Elephants

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few visitors this morning, and some help addling goose eggs

Maintenance

  • Haven’t had quite enough sunlight lately so I’ve ran the generator a couple of times but I haven’t had to run it too much

Ecological

  • 13 elephants seals, only one has molted and about 4 of these elephants are young males, between 1-3 years old
  • Nemo the male pup is still here, Dory left a little while ago
  • There are at least 5 or 6 goose nests around that need addling, which we do here as population control of the geese

Cameras are back up

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-5 SE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a few visitors this morning

Maintenance

  • as many of you noticed the cameras were down, that is because there was an issue without the router on Saturday, we just got replacement parts today and everything should be up running this also includes my internet which means I can post on this blog again

Ecological

  • A lot of elephant seals lately, there are 7 females and 4 males, this includes the pup
  • The males are very small, no big noses yet, they must be 2 or 3 years old, one of them has a green tag D018
  • the female pup left two days ago but the male pup is still here, he will probably leave any day now
  • only one of the females has been molting so far, the other 6 will probably start soon
  • I have counted 6 goose nests so far, I haven’t been able to addle them because I do need someone to help me fend off the geese while one takes the eggs. We do this is a population control method and have a permit to addle goose eggs

Storming

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Final exam/assignments the past week have kept me very busy, so here is  an update on the current elephant seals

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-35 SE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Waves 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • No boats out there today

Ecological

  • There are 3 mature females, one young male and the pups are still here. I have not seen any molting yet, the females will be going through that soon
  • There are 3 goose nests that I’ve seen, I attempted to addle the eggs but there was no getting past those geese which seem extra vicious this year
  • Still about 100 sea lions, mix of california and stellar, mostly california
  • Theres usually nearly 50 or 60 harbour seals out on the rocks, not today due to the storm

Still on land

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 SE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Flat

Boats/Visitors

  • Some ecotours out today

Maintenance

  • The desal quit on me a couple of times last night so I’m trying for a longer run tonight

Ecological

  • The pups still have not gone into the water, haven’t even gone near the jetty, they are both still beside the main house, they have been chewing on the grass a bit
  • the pigeon guillemots are back, looks to be a couple hundred of them
  • still around 100 sea lions, and about 50 harbour seals all together on the surrounding rocks
  • there are about 16 geese which I’m sure are starting to look for good nesting spots, there is also an increase in seagulls, I can tell from how noisy they are