Tag Archives: harbour seal

River otters, an injured seal and a baby seal

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 10-15 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: Ripply
  • Some fog this morning

Birds

  • The 2 geese that had a nest near the crane have now abandoned their nest – haven’t seen them in a couple of days and one single egg remains unhatched.

Marine mammals

  • Lots of seal news!
    • After reports of an injured harbour seal in the area, I finally spotted one on the boat ramp today. While this seal has several scars and some bloody wounds, it doesn’t however match the description of the injured seal we received, so maybe it’s a different one. This one I spotted doesn’t seem to have any serious injures, just several small ones.
    • Spotted an adult and baby seal just behind the crane today! They were originally spotted the other day by Nikola from the top of the lighthouse when the Communications team came for a visit, but I couldn’t get a photo earlier. They are extremely adorable!
  • River otters
    • I caught a glimpse of a pair of river otters for the first time today, running down the jetty with what seemed to be either a seagull chick or an egg. There were two of them, but they were too fast for me to get a picture.

Technical

  • 10 days now without having to start up the generator! We are 100% solar!

Molting Harbour Seal

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 25-30 knts W
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • An average number of ecotour boats today – the tourists were treated with quite a spectacular sunset!

Marine Mammals

  • Saw a single California Sea Lion on the jetty early this afternoon – the only sea lion to be visible in the last 3 days.
  • Spotted a molting harbour seal near the jetty that seemed to be in a lot of pain. It’s unusual for harbour seals to come to the main island, but this one seemed to be trying to stay out of the water, possibly due to sensitive skin. I kept an eye on it for the evening, and went to check on it this morning but it was gone.

Census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-20 NE
  • Sky: Sunny all day
  • Water: Choppy 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • Saw some boats cruising by

Ecological

  • The pups are doing well, one of the younger males was attacking the oldest pup until Bernard came along and chased him off

Census

  • Stellar Sea Lions – 80
  • California Sea Lions – 62
  • Harbour Seals – 28
  • Elephant Seals – 2 female pups, 3 males
  • Geese – 12
  • Oystercatchers – 16
  • Eagles – 6
  • Harlequinn Ducks – 9
  • Gulls – 283
  • Cormorants – 60
  • Black Turnstones – 35

Census and update on pup

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10-15 miles
  • Wind: ranging 20-30 NE
  • Sky: cloudy
  • Water: choppy 1-2 metres

Boats/Visitors

  • Not much boat traffic, saw a couple helicopters though

Ecological

  • The pup born on tuesday is doing well
  • The larger male is keeping the smaller 3 males away from the mom and pup
  • still a few sea lions around

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 76
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 58
  • Elephant Seals – 6 (4 males, 1 female and 1 pup)
  • Harbour Seals – 32
  • Cormorants – 128
  • Gulls – 94
  • Oyster Catchers – 24
  • Black Turnstones – 27
  • Eagles – 4

Lone Goose & Harbour Seals

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Weather

  • Visibility: clear, 15 miles throughout the day
  • Wind: light breeze all day, NE
  • Sky: overcast this morning with a bit of sun in the late afternoon
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy at times

Boats/Visitors

  • Didn’t notice much boat traffic today, a few eco tours/whale watchers went by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Group of 12-14 harbour seals on the south east rocks
  • Five male elephant seals are still here
  • Had a lone canada goose waiting diligently in the same spot from 8am until it’s mate came back around 2 or 3pm.

Other

  • I’m hoping the weather holds for the annual bird count to happen tomorrow, though there is rain in the forecast.

Census & Five Male Elephant Seals

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles all day
  • Wind: Light breezes throughout the day NE mostly
  • Sky: mostly cloudy
  • Water: a bit rough, one to two foot swells

Boats/Visitors

  • Boat traffic was pretty minimum today again, saw one fishing boat go by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • There are now a total of 5 male elephant seals on the island. Two are full grown and the other three are adolescents.
  • The two elephant seal pups are still around as well.

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 78
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 64
  • Harbour Seals – 2
  • Elephant Seals – 7
  • Gulls – 58
  • Cormorants – 16
  • Bald Eagles – 2
  • Black Turnstones – 6

Census, birds and mammals

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 6-10 NE throughout day
  • Sky: cloudy with some sun
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • had a few eco tour boats cruise by
  • no visitors today

Ecological

Census:

  • California Sea Lions – 120
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 102
  • Harbour Seals – 4
  • Seagulls – 252
  • Eagles – 5
  • Cormorant – 22
  • Canadian Geese – 12
  • Black Turnstone – 3

DND Blast and a Surprise Audience

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 12-16 NE throughout the day
  • Sky: sunny, very few clouds
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Had one large eco tour boat full of passengers sneak up on me and yell “Hello” as a group. That was fun (:
  • lots of large shipping vessels passing by including two huge logging barges

Ecological

  • still a decent amount of sea lions around
  • there is another, smaller harbour seal pup hanging out now too
  • Bernard (the elephant seal) is back!
  • haven’t seen any canadian geese in a few days

Other

  • had more large DND blasts go off from Rocky Point that shook the house and startled birds today.

First Week as Ecoguardian

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Weather

  • Visibility: Very foggy early morning but cleared right up by 8:30am
  • Wind: 11-16 NE throughout the day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm, a bit choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • Had about 7 boats cruise by in the last week
  • had a small tour come ashore last saturday morning of pearson college students

Ecological

  • had a young harbour seal that was on the island for a few days but is gone now
  • there are a pair of eagles hanging around for the last week
  • large male elephant seal was here for 6 days and left last night
  • caught a quick glimpse of what looked like a small sea otter running by the jetty yesterday morning

Other

  • had a very large blast go off from Rocky Point that shook the house and startled birds.

Notes

  • enjoyed my first week here at Race Rocks!

Long term record for harbour seal at Race Rocks

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Pam Birley sent this picture today that she took with the remote camera of Six-spot, a harbour seal she has photographed over a several year period. see previous post at https://www.racerocks.ca/6-spot-the-harbour-seal-observed-at-rr-since-2008/