Tag Archives: hatching eggs

Hatching Goslings + Exciting New Arrival

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Today’s Weather Conditions:

  • Sky clear, a few fluffy white clouds on the horizon
  • Visibility 10 NM
  • Wind 20-25 knots W
  • Sea state: fast moving ripples, occasional white caps

Special Feature! Daniel who visited last Thursday has allowed us to share the information that he collected while he was here: Click Here to view his photos and recordings. There are some great shots of the oystercatcher chicks!

Visitors/ Marine Traffic:

  • On Monday Greg delivered water and fuel
  • Yesterday afternoon a large coastguard ship and smaller rib passed through. They looked like they were having a blast taking photos in front of Race Rocks.
  • A handful of whale watching boats in the reserve over the weekend. Interesting to note that they have altered their path and seem to be more interested in the farther outcroppings this season.
  • On Monday a large coastguard helicopter flew overhead

Ecological Observations: 

  • The last remaining goose nest under camera five hatched over the weekend and there are now 4 goslings. While we are hopeful that they will be able to survive, reflecting on the fate of the previous 5 we are doubtful that they will be able to compete and/or evade predators this late into the season.
  • There are now two large elephant seals! Another huge male appeared overnight yesterday. He is enjoying relaxing in the shade next to the guest house.
  • The seagulls have become much more aggressive towards us. Although we are careful to stay on the footpaths and not disturb the nesting birds, they take swooping passes at our heads and drop excrement from above.
  • The seagull behavior towards each other has also become much more territorial. They fight over nesting materials, food, and to maintain their nesting locations. The female seagulls stay near the nesting site, while the male seagulls fish or scavenge for food. The male seagulls regurgitate food for the female seagulls, much like the adults regurgitate food for their chicks.

Other Notes: There has been ammunition detonation on the department of defense land across the water today and yesterday. The location they are using is very close, and with every blast the geese and other birds startle and scramble for a few seconds before settling down again.

Gulls Galore!

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Weather: 

  • Wind: 15-25 knots westerly
  • Sky: Partly cloudy, grey
  • Water: Rippled, notably strong currents
  • Visibility: 10 miles

Boats/Visitors: 

  • We had a large group of visitors from the college this afternoon. The seagulls were surprisingly less aggressive, presumably because of the size of the group.
  • We have some guests staying for the weekend.
  • There were fewer whale watching boats in the reserve today, mainly in the evening.

Ecological: 

  • The seagulls have become very aggressive towards us. When we move around individually they fly towards us.
  • There have been quite a few harbour seals around on the outlying rocks.

First Hatching Eggs!

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Weather:

  • Wind: 10 – 20 knots
  • Sky: Overcast, short showers
  • Visibility: 10 miles
  • Water: Rippled

Boats/Visitors:

The winds have calmed down over the past couple of days, so we have been seeing more whale watching boats, about 10-15 per day.

Today Greg came with a college vessel with two tanks of water and one yesterday.

Ecological:

The oyster catcher eggs have hatched! Today we spotted two chicks with the two parents on the rocks in front of the crane nearby the jetty. The adults were picking food from the waters edge and carrying it to feed the chicks. We spotted one more pair with one chick on the other side of the jetty. It seems that only one of their two eggs hatched.

We are expecting the seagull eggs to hatch soon as well, as we found a deceased chick on our pathway yesterday that was nearly fully developed. The nearby shell appeared to have been pecked as well as the chick itself. There are eagle feathers scattered around the island from the eagles that have been swooping through the flocks of seagulls, but we are inclined to suspect that another seagull broke this egg due to the apparent pecking.

There are four large male elephant seals here moulting, and while they are fairly docile they have a hard time hearing us coming, and can be aggressive if they are taken by surprise.

Maintenance: 

We are still waiting on the new desalinator, but now have a sufficient fresh water supply thanks to Greg! He also brought us a new foot for the water pump which we installed. We continue to collect shingles as they blow off of the roofs awaiting repair. Kai is excited about his new project: repairing a ceased water pump.