Weather: calm and westerly most of the day

today was a very eventful day.

To start off Great Race had a visitor.

marbled godwit

Then at about 8:15 a.m. I went up to the lamp room to do a census but the tide was too high so I decided to clean the room (I had brought up supplies). At about 830 I saw a splash and watched it until I saw whales surface. Initially I was not sure if they were Dall’s porpoises or Orcas I watched and took photos for about 20 minutes. Then I saw a sea lion flipper. I thought maybe all were fishing together (very influenced by Robin Kimmerer and looking for reciprocity not competition). Every time the sea lion surfaced the largest Orca would come crashing over it. This happened often. Soon I realized I could depend on a good Orca photo if I waited until I saw the sea lion. It did not come up face first very often, almost always just a fin. Over the next hour I knew I was watching transient Orcas hunt a stellar sea lion. Soon they had moved close to outer seal rocks (I imagine the sea lion was desperately trying to get to shore) and the sea lions on the rocks became active. They moved into the water! After about another 30 minutes the whales and surrounded sea lion were moving again off shore. One last surface from the sea lion flipper and it was not seen again. In about 20 more minutes the whales were surrounded by gulls diving and picking debris off the water. Even an eagle got involved. I watched this drama for 2 1/2 hours and at that time the whale watching boats arrived, 5 of them. But the whales kept surfacing and the gulls flocking. Unfortunately the camera was full within the first 20 minutes and  I was so frustrated BUT my iphone was able to capture great video footage of the whales at seal rocks and the sea lions!

I am sorry I cannot download the videos!

Visitors: 5 whale watching boats made their way to the whales but not until after the sky was full of seagulls and I suppose they were eating their prey. Afterwards all the boats went through the reserve. An spill response boat also went through.

Energy: For some reason the draw is very high today. At about1 o’clock I noticed our usage was over 2 kW and usually it is about 1.2. I spoke to ONC to see if their equipment was faulty but everything at their end was normal.

it was an exciting day at Race Rocks.