Tag Archives: humpback

Halloween Mystery Berries

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Weather Today: 

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky clear with lots of sun in the later afternoon
  • Wind 0-5 knots N
  • Calm seas

Visitors and traffic: 

  • No visitors over the last couple of days.
  • A handful (3-6) of whale watching boats come through daily as well as a couple of private vessels.

Ecological Notes: 

  • Mara spotted and photographed a small amount of orange/red berries on the ground near the jetty. It would appear a bird regurgitated them – we aren’t exactly sure what they are and haven’t seen anything like this before.
  • The amount of sea lions seems to have stabilized. There are many hauled out, but thankfully this seems to be it! They are very determined to rest near and right up to the south side of our house and all around the lighthouse down to the desalinator building. The worst they do is dislodge some of the rocks that form unused raised beds and low walls around those areas.
  • We have been spotting whales frequently over the last week or two, and saw another humpback today.
  • Last night and the night before it rained heavily and the puddles that remain are being enjoyed by the seagulls and geese.

Some photos from the last couple of days:

Additional Notes: 

    • We have begun clearing out the firewood that was stored under the front deck/stairs. With the work on the guest house stairs nearing completion, the stairs on the main residence could be up next.
    • While moving the firewood we took a closer look at the remainders of a very old looking wrought iron bench (stored with the firewood). This looks like an interesting artifact! The company Innova it still around and selling similar goods.

 

A New Arrival

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Today’s Weather Conditions: 

  • Sky overcast
  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Wind 15-20 knots W
  • Sea state: calm, fast moving currents today (almost 5 knots)
  • Daily fog in the mornings and often late afternoon as well

Marine Traffic/Island Visitors:

  • No island visitors aside from Greg on Thursday with supplies
  • Quite a few whale watching boats today and yesterday (20+)
  • Not many pleasure crafts passing through the reserve, but many outside of pedder bay (especially yesterday)
  • We saw 3 whale watching boats just outside the reserve circle a small group of orcas and follow them under power into the strong currents earlier this afternoon.

Ecological Observations: 

  • Today we were joined again by elephant seal V173. She was also here in December and again in the late spring when we first arrived. Her left eye is a bit oozy and red, but it seems like it is still functioning properly and she is otherwise looking great! She must have eaten a lot of fish out there- she’s much bigger than the last time we saw her only a few months ago.
  • The seagull chicks have been wandering farther away from the safety of their nesting areas, and we have been seeing quite a few more deceased chicks on the ground all around the island. They are being killed by rival gulls protecting their territory and young. There are a few chicks with injuries from these attacks, such as broken legs or wings.
  • We found an eviscerated gull chick on our back step on Friday afternoon. It looks quite a bit like a chicken does when a mink kills them (head missing), so we wonder if this is the work of a river otter.
  • As mentioned above we observed a few orcas just outside of the reserve earlier today. We have also been seeing humpbacks passing quite far away in the straight.
  • The pigeon guillemot nest that we have been observing closely (near our back porch) has at least one chick! We carefully peeked into the crevice and caught a glimpse of a tiny puff of black downy feathers. We are excited to be able to watch their activity so closely from our window as they are very secretive with their movements typically.
  • The remaining male elephant seal has been venturing to other parts of the island as his moult is finishing up. He has been finding some creative places to wiggle over rocks into shallow pools heated by water spilling over sun warmed rocks as the tides rise.
  • We heard a surfbird’s call today while out near the jetty- it’s a very shrill sound, just like the second recording here.

Humpbacks still around

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Weather: 

  • Sky: Overcast
  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-15 knots NE
  • Water: Choppy under a metre

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Saw a couple tour boats going by today, and a dive boat

Ecological

  • The sea lion numbers dropped a little again and the elephant seal numbers have gone up a tiny bit
  • Census
    • Sea Lions – 438 (96 Steller and 342 California)
    • Harbour Seals – 32
    • Gulls – still around 200
    • Cormorants – 75
    • Canada Geese – 14
    • Black Turnstones – 30
    • Eagles – 6
    • Elephant Seals, 2 males, one of them is the alpha the previous two years, Bernard and the other is slightly smaller male and then 1 small female tagged V173 who I found out was born in Point Reyes last February 2019
    • Humpbacks – 3 are going by just now, photo below is very blurry due to low light

CAS Week

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Weather: 

  • Sky: Weather is all over the place, blowing and raining one minute, sunny the next
  • Visibility: 10-15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-20 knots NE
  • Water: some chop coming and going

Boats/Visitors: 

    • despite it being wet and cold there were still a few tour boats cruising around
    • Guy dropped off Laura and her marine scientists for CAS week so they will be staying in the student house

Ecological

  • So many sea lions, here is an updated census
  • Census
    • Sea Lions – 827 (247 Steller and 580 California)
    • Harbour Seals – 22
    • Gulls – 385
    • Cormorants – 140
    • Fox Sparrows – 10ish, harder to count these guys
    • Canada Geese – 22
    • Black Turnstones – 50
    • Eagles – 2
    • Great Blue Heron – 1
    • possibly 1 sea otter, bit hard to see from this distance
  • Also, still spotting 1 or two humpbacks each day

Little Steller

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Sky: overcast
  • Wind: 15-20 kn NW
  • Water: Little choppy under 1 foot

Visitors/Boats: 

  • Since I got back on Tuesday there have been approximately 15 boats per day, the number varies a bit each day
  • On tuesday and thursday we had visitors from the eagle wing crew come for a tour on Race Rocks. It was so nice for them to be able to come check out what Race Rocks looks like from the land after seeing it from the water so many times
  • Greg and Guy are coming by today so we can do a more in depth orientation on the projects and maintenance going on around the island

Ecological

  • After my walk around I noticed a couple interesting things, first there was a young steller, not a baby but he was still nursing.
  • Then an elephant seal, which was so nice to see and it had a green tag on it. Unfortunately by the time I got my camera it was already gone.
  • There have also been humpbacks nearby lately, the past two days there have been 4. Yesterday when the eagle wing crew was here was saw a fishing boat getting way to close to the whales, the whales were clearly upset and one jumped right out of the water because of it. Luckily we saw one of the whale watching boats from BC tours and got a hold of them and they let us know they had a word with the fishing boat about keeping its distance from the animals.

Maintenance

  • The fence still needs to be repaired twice a day but the sea lions are starting to stay away from the entrance to the generator room with regular clearing which will also start happening around the burial cairns between the student house and the helicopter pad. The sea lions have started shifting the stones around a lot and we want to preserve this important historic area.

Humpbacks

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I have not seen any humpbacks in a couple weeks but there was a lot of humpbacks of this year between late September and most of October. I would see usually between 5-10 a day, and sometimes more, it also depends if I am looking up at the same time they are coming up for air. I would say there was even more humpback activity this year than last year. Last year there was also a lot of humpbacks around in October but I also remember there being more killer whales around, I didn’t see as many of those this year. I would see most acitivity around sunrise and sunset, I could count on them everyday to be coming up on the west side of the island and then during the day I wold often see them just south of the island. Once in a while they would get pretty close on the north side of the island but that didn’t happen very often.

 

 

 

Busy Week

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Calm to choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • the past week was CAS week at the college so I had two groups of students drop by, the first group were marine scientists that came for 5 days and helped out with cleaning up garbage, collecting driftwood, doing a daily census and stuff like that
  • the second group were divers that unfortunately did not get to dive while they were here but have been diving around race rocks before, they stayed for two nights

Maintenance

  • What a week, the fence had to be repaired quite a bit, the students helped me with it one day, and I did not properly show them how to repair the fence so the wire ended up being grounded which the sea lions took full advantage of and completely messed up the fence
  • The electric pump in the crane house is working but is kind of slow going, it also takes a lot of priming
  • the fire pump is out of commission at the moment, there were a lot fo issues with it probably due to the fact it is not a saltwater pump and has been sitting by the ocean for 3 years
  • the desalinator is not cooperating either, it will work for maybe an hour before it shuts itself off, I can restart it but again it will only run for another hour and only desalinates half the water it used to in the same amount of time

Ecological

  • I personally have seen about 8 humpback whales a day for the past week
  • there was also a pod of about 6 killerhwhales that one of the students saw from the lighthouse which we found out later were transients and were actually hunting sea lions
  • There have also been some interesting birds around, there was a robin here, which I don’t typically see and there was also a snow goose, which I personally have never seen here before, its been hanging out with the Canada geese other birds include oyster catchers, killdeer, ravens, and eagles
  • the neck banded sea lions seem to come and go, they are very difficult to keep track of, I believe there are two at the moment and I see them about once a week, since there are over 1000 sea lions at the moment they easily get lost in the crowd, even the group of students I had here only saw them once

Water pumps and whales

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Weather

  • Visibility: 0-15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-15 NE
  • Sky: Dense fog to partly cloudy
  • Water: Calm to choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours and fishing boats going by
  • Greg dropped by to help us sort out our water situation

Maintenance

  • Fence maintenance with the help of the students
  • The electric water pump in the crane shed is working to an extent, the issue is the hose doesn’t go out far enough, so I can’t pump water at low tide
  • The fire pump also needs some maintenance

Ecological

  • The students have been doing a daily census
  • Today they have spotted about 7 or 8 humpbacks and a pod of about 6 killer whales

Census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-10 SE
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours and sailboats going by

Maintenance

  • Fence maintenance, some pressure washing

Ecological

  • Still quite a few humpbacks around counted about 6 today
  • haven’t seen the sea lion pups today but I’m sure they are around
  • There was a boreal owl that made an appearance last night but I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo of it and I haven’t seen it again but hopefully it makes another appearance

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 409
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 327
  • Harbour Seals – 156
  • Cormorants – 281
  • Eagles – 2
  • Turnstones – 18
  • Fox Sparrow – 12
  • Oystercatchers – 8
  • Gulls – 320
  • Boreal Owl – 1

Students, pups, humpbacks and a dead sea lion

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-20 SW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Choppy, under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours
  • Guy came by with a little tour group this morning and then again in the afternoon with a group of students that will be spending their CAS week here

Maintenance

  • Fence maintenance, some pressure washing

Ecological

  • Counted at least 8 humpbacks throughout the day
  • there is a big dead stellar on the south west part of the island, I don’t usually go down there so I havent seen it until now
  • There are also about a dozen oyster catchers near the generator room
  • The sea lion pup is back and i got some great photos of it, even got some shots of it nursing which is very unusual to have such a young pup on the island