Tag Archives: harbour seal

Molting

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-20 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: A little choppy

Boats/Visitors

  • a few boats out today
  • had someone out here to look at the desal, hopefully solving that issue soon

Maintenance

  • we’ve been getting a lot of solar but today is cloudy so I’ll run the generator and desal for a few hours

Ecological

  • the pups are having fun splashing around
  • there are 3 females altogether, one of them is quite young probably 2 or 3 years old the other two are much older and they will be molting soon, we should be expecting more females within the next couple weeks
  • no more male elephant seals around just the pup
  • not  a lot of sea lions but there are plenty of harbour seals on the outer rocks
  • I have not spotted any goose nests yet but I’m sure it’ll happen soon, not looking forward to that, looks to be at least 8 nesting pairs on island

Pup adoption and census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 5-15 NE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Small waves

Boats/Visitors

  • No visitors today, have been hearing the coast guard cruise by at night and do flare training

Maintenance

  • The desal was finally running last night although it was a slow process I got some fresh water out of it

Ecological

  • The male pups mother left the other night, it was nice to see the pups interacting yesterday but today they are more separated because the male pup has started nursing off the mother who lost her pup
  • One of the elephant seals managed to totally knock down the little green shed by the generator room, which is too heavy for me to put back together alone
  • definitely less sea lions now, but there is a lot of cormorants

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 114
  • Steller Sea Lions – 42
  • Harbour Seal – 21
  • Elephant Seal – 3 male, 1 female plus 2 pups, 1 female, 1 male
  • Cormorants – 528
  • Gulls – 130
  • Black Turnstones – 34
  • Eagle – 16
  • Oyster Catchers – 8
  • Harlequin Ducks – 10
  • Geese – 21

Census, eagles, storms and elephants

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Final exams are over so I will be posting more until I am out for winter break December 20th to January 3rd

Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: From 0 – 40 SE over the last few days
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: from calm to huge waves during that last storm

Boats/Visitors

  • Not a lot of visitors lately
  • There were a couple of sailboats yesterday and a few ecotours, but not many

Maintenance

  • Running the generator more lately as is there is less sunlight
  • Still haven’t been able to pressure wash but the parts should be in when I get back from break and I can try to make the buildings white again

Ecological

  • Fewer sea lions than last week
  • Chunk is still the alpha but there are 3 other males on the island of varying sizes smaller than Chunk
  • There is currently 1 female elephant seal
  • a few green wing teal ducks took shelter here when it was storming
  • have spotted a neck banded sea lion, but no way to tell if he will still be here by the time I can people out here to help him

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 213
  • Steller Sea Lions – 192
  • Harbour Seal – 35
  • Elephant Seal – 4 male, 1 female
  • Cormorants – 207
  • Gulls – 233
  • Fox Sparrows – 12
  • Canada Geese – 21
  • Black Turnstones – 38
  • Eagle – 8
  • Raven – 1
  • Snow Bunting – 1
  • Oyster Catchers – 12
  • Harlequin Ducks – 10
  • Green Wing Teal – 6

A little busy lately

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 15-25 NE
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Choppy under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Not a lot of visitors lately, the ecotours are still going by but not as frequently
  • I did have to leave for a few nights so that is why the posts have been lacking a bit lately, I had to go into town to do my final exams

Maintenance

  • Running the generator more lately as is there is less sunlight

Ecological

  • Fewer sea lions than last week
  • Chunk, as he was identified by the scars on his back, is the current alpha and there is one more male who is much smaller
  • No female elephant seals yet
  • 34 Geese, I have never seen that many here before
  • in one of the photos, you will see a pretty young steller too
  • haven’t seen any neckbanded sea lions lately, too bad we weren’t able to help them before they left

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 273
  • Steller Sea Lions – 291
  • Harbour Seal – 25
  • Elephant Seal – 2 male
  • Cormorants – 140
  • Gulls – 233
  • Fox Sparrows – 12
  • Canada Geese – 34
  • Black Turnstones – 41
  • Eagle – 6
  • Raven – 1
  • Snow Bunting – 1
  • Oyster Catchers – 12
  • Harlequin Ducks – 10

Pam sees 6-spot the harbour seal

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Pam Birley of Leistershire  England has regularly photographed this harbour seal which she named 6-spot , since 2008.. Their lifespan is 25-30 years.

Census and so many sea lions

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 NW
  • Sky: Overcast
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Guy, Greg and Travis came by to help finish putting up the fence and also fix a couple things in the house
  • Still a lot of ecotours cruising by each day

Maintenance

  • The fence is up and working better than the old fence for keeping the sea lions out of certain areas
  • the washer is now also working, which is great for me
  • had to run the generator quite a bit today, the batteries have been running low

Ecological

  • About a hundred more sea lions than there were last weak
  • also seems to be more gulls and harbour seals
  • havent see the geese around today
  • also a sea lion with garbage wrapped around its neck, will contact the right people and keep an eye on him

Census

  • California sea lion – 371
  • Stellar sea lion – 184
  • Harbour seal – 77
  • Elephant seal – 1 female , there was another female but she left a couple days ago
  • Cormorants – 30
  • Seagulls – 486
  • Black turnstones – 25
  • Fox sparrows – 12

Marine Mammals of Race Rocks

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A slide show by Ron Bellamy of Sooke August 2018

Census and haze

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 miles
  • Wind: 0-5 knts W
  • Sky: Hazy
  • Water: Ripply

Mammal Notes

  • More sea lions continue to arrive on the island – spotted a few branded ones, but could only make out one number (steller with brand 348R).

Bird Notes

  • The first of the juvenile seagulls have started to fly short distances (5-6 feet at a time). Most are still grounded though.

Census

  • Elephant Seals
    • Male = 1
    • Female = 0
  • Sea Lions
    • California = 32
    • Steller = 38
  • Seagulls = 305 adults + 128 juvenile
  • Pigeon Guillemot = 67
  • Eagles = 0
  • Oystercatchers = 4 adults
  • Harbour Seals = 16 adults, 2 (maybe more) babies
  • Geese = 9
  • Black turnstone = 85

Seagull chicks growing and adult seagulls less aggressive

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 25-35 knts W
  • Sky: Clear
  • Water: 1-2m waves, white caps
  • Some fog this morning to the south

Birds

  • The early seagull chicks have grown a lot, and are currently 2/3 the size of the adults.
  • Today was the first day the seagulls seemed to be (relatively) less aggressive – not sure if it was because of the strong wind or the fact that the chicks can now move themselves to safety.

Marine mammals

  • The californian sea lion that was earlier seen near the guest house, has returned there.
  • Saw a female elephant seal on the island after a while. That makes 3 males and 1 female on the island
  • I think there are more than 2 harbour seal pups near the island, although I haven’t been able to confirm yet. Attached is a picture.

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.