Nothing major to report today. The weather was blue sky and sun all days with no wind until around 6pm. Four transient killer whales passed by mid afternoon including a large male. Always a good day when you get to see whales!
Tag Archives: killer whale
Not a Fun Day to be a Sea Lion!
Another epic day!
This morning I spotted the darker of our two new otters feeding off South Island again. These two might need names if they keep sticking around. Bright red urchins were on the breakfast menu for today, personally I prefer a few less spikes with my coffee.
The afternoon brought transient killer whales past the reserve who spent 2.5 hours in the area hunting sea lion. While they didn’t come super close, they did put on a pretty unbelievable show!
Visitors:
- Greg and furnace repairman
Facility Work:
- Keeper’s house furnace now working!
- Prepped student house for visitors
Noted Vessel Traffic:
- Ecotourism vessels
Weather Events:
- Friday, March 15:
- Sky: Blue sky
- Wind: High of 14 knots, Low of 6 knots
- Sea: Whitecaps
- Temperature: Low 6oC, High 10oC
New Eco-guardian
Ecological Notes:
• 1 female Elephant Seal.
• 1 male Elephant Seal.
Facility Work:
• Power washed stairs of main front house and applied preservative to the wood.
• Cleaned solar panels.
Noted Vessel Traffic:
• Several ecotourism vessels and 4 pleasure vessels.
Noted Infractions:
• Two speeding pleasure vessels in the reserve.
Feature Event:
• Bigg’s killer whales entered the reserve yesterday early afternoon and again at sunset!
• Thank you Derek for helping me with the transition as Ecoguardian.
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- T060C cruising past the kelp forest.
Weather – Current:
http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather – Past:
http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?
Exciting Sightings
Wind: yesterday 0-31 knots from W to E to N, today 10-17 knots from N-NE
Sea State: yesterday rippled, today rippled with chop up to 1 m in morning
Visibility: both days 10-15 NM
Sky: both days clear
Temperature: yesterday 5-7 °C, today 4-6 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.85 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)
There were some exciting sightings over the past two days. Just before sunset this evening, a pod of orcas was swimming in the current to the west of the island. There were at least five or six orcas of various ages.
This morning, between 20 to 30 pigeon guillemots were paddling through the Middle Channel, to the north of the main island. Some still have grey-ish heads of their winter plumage.
Yesterday one tour boat, two sailboats and three pleasure crafts passed through the ecological reserve. Today three tour boats travelled by the islands. No visitors were on the island.
The military was doing demolition training for the past two days on Bentinck Island.
See the photos below for sights from the past two days:
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- Two kinds of chitons were seen in the intertidal zone: mossy chiton on the left and black katy chiton on the right.
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- A late afternoon low tide shows the old boat ramp that went straight out and the existing ramp with rails for the boat dolly.
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- An injured gull that is missing its lower mandible (bill). It might have been attacked by a bald eagle and got away.
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- Yesterday’s sunset at 5:30pm. Can you spot the snoozing california sea lion in the foreground?
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- Six pigeon guillemots paddle through Middle Channel.
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- Daffodils with the youngest adult male elephant seal in the background.
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- For the past few days, the two female elephant seal pups have been hanging out and vocalizing to each other.
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- A male elephant seal on the helicopter pad is lit up by the glow of the sunset this evening.
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- A pod of orcas swam by the west of the island this evening in an ebbing current. Two of the orcas can be seen here. There were at least three others.
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- The large dorsal fin of a male orca
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- A bald eagle perches on top of the camera 5 housing and takes a poop. Mount Baker (Kulshan) can be seen in the background.
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- The same bald eagle that was on the camera housing, perches on the roof of the residence. I noticed the metal band on its left leg, but couldn’t make out any markings on the band.
Killer whales!
Weather
- Visibility: 15 Miles
- Wind: 0-15 NE
- Sky: Sunny
- Water: Flat
Boats/Visitors
- quite a few ecotours out there today
Maintenance
- firewood has been stacked, now just need to fill the water tank and maybe do some pressure washing
Ecological
- So nice to see a few killer whales out there today
- the male pup has started making his way to the water but hasn’t gone in yet, the female pup hasn’t moved from beside the house
- the alpha is the only male I see on the island at the moment but I think there are two more around
- the lonely snow bunting is still around
One Orca
Weather
- Visibility: 15 Miles
- Wind: 2-38 SW
- Sky: Cloudy
- Water: Waves were 0-2 metres today
Boats/Visitors
- There was on ecotour this morning when the wind wasn’t too bad but none this afternoon when the wind picked up
Maintenance
- Moving the dry wood from the porch stairs to the basement, when the wind calms down again I’ll be moving the wood that Alex cut from the pile to under the stairs to dry out
- Didn’t have to run the generator during the day but started it after sunset
Ecological
- I forgot to mention I saw one killer whale swimming west in front of Peddar Bay on Monday
- Still no second pup, this female has been hauled out for at least six days, starting to think she’s just a bit pudgy, but hopefully, she’ll have a pup soon
Humpbacks
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.
Orca Skeletal Mount at Pearson College
The Finished product of the work of skeletal preparation of L51 is now suspended above the lab benches in Catrin Brown’s Biology Lab. The mount was made by students and Hans Bauer, a former faculty member who volunteered for the job, along with Hugo Sutmoller.
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- Full length view from the front
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- View from rear
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- JAWS
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- Rib cage
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- Arm and hand close up. Note the pentadactyl limb
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- Upper and lower mandibles
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- The hyoid process under the neck.
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- Front right side view
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- mid ribs
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- Tail
See the flensing of the orca L51 by Pearson College students
A serious contaminant of Orcas in the southern Vancouver island area is PCBs. Male Orcas accumulate these chemicals throughout their life, whereas females are purported to increase in levels until a birth, whereupon the levels in the tissue drop as a result of lactation.
For more information on contaminants in the Orca Food web, see the following Link:
“Is Victoria Sewage Contaminating Southern Resident Killer Whales?“
A Technical Submission to the SETAC Victoria Sewage Scientific and Technical Review Panel
By Gerald Graham, Ph. D. Marine Environmental Consultant
On behalf of the T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation