heerman’s gull | Race Rocks Ecological Reserve-

Wildlife notes:

The other day I went looking for more banded gulls to report. I’ve found three different ones so far and was hoping for another. They don’t mix in with the breeding gulls on the island but hang out along the rocky shoreline with the juveniles or other visiting gulls. Instead of a banded gull, I found a Heermann’s gull. The bird guides state it is the easiest gull to identify with its red bill, white head, grey body, black tail and black feet, perfectly dressed for a formal dinner. What a classy bird.

Heermann’s gull

Heermann’s gull preening

Heermann’s gull in flight

From left to right: Heermann’s, immature western and California gulls.

I spotted seven killer whales about 1.5 miles to the southwest. They were flanked for about 3 miles by an armada of ecotourism vessels of all sizes. No peace for these creatures just trying to find some lunch!

Facility work:

cleaned solar panels
cleaned windows on Keeper’s house

Vessels:

20 ecotourism

DND activity:

A few blasts were heard mid-day. Wildlife was not visibly disturbed.

Weather:

Sunny and fresh westerly breeze throughout the day. Daytime temperature steady 12 degrees.

Weather:

Sky partly cloudy, some sun and blue sky
Visibility 10-12 NM
Wind 20-15 knots W
Sea state: fast moving currents, still fairly flat despite wind

The fog horn continued for 20+ hrs each day until today. For most of this week we have had less than 100m visibility, making it impossible to see even a boat passing through race passage or the end of the jetty. At some points, we could barely see the guest house from the main residence! It can be difficult to focus and/or work productively during these long periods of fog, as the fog horn sounds three long high-pitched “beeps” every 45 seconds. More info on the history of Race Rocks foghorns Here!

Visitors:

There have not been any visitors to race rocks since Monday when Greg and a contractor stopped in briefly.
There have been 1-2 tour boats in the reserve daily, but we can often hear them before we see them in the fog. The sea lions are easily startled by them because of the limited visibility, and sometimes when the boats emerge from the fog the sea lions run into the water.

Ecological Observations:

The sea lions have officially taken over the island! We have been dutifully repairing the electric fences daily to keep them from damaging the buildings and especially from disrupting the burial cairns.
There have been an incredible amount of interesting birds to observe this week, despite the weather. Today we saw a pelican while enjoying the sunshine right from our back porch! This is a new sighting for us at Race Rocks and we were quite ecstatic.
On the note of bird sightings, we are hopeful for the installation of a new bird tracking device on Race Rocks sometime soon which will allow us to view migratory birds passing through the reserve as it detects their tracking bands.
One of our favorite elephant seals, E103 or “Erica” has returned again. We were happy to see her looking healthy yesterday- she had been hiding behind the piles of sea lions, and we only saw her once we had shooed them to install more electric fencing.
Identifying gulls is incredibly difficult. Some of them look the same aside from a slight wing color difference or color of feet determining them as a separate species! We are wondering if the gulls we have been assuming to be non-breeding california gulls are actually thayer’s gulls. Back to the id books!

Census: