Tag Archives: oregon junco

Sunny Fall Days

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Weather Today: 

  • Sky clear blue, intermittent thick fog
  • Visibility .5 NM – 15+ NM
  • Wind 5-10 knots W
  • Sea state: calm

Visitors: Jeff and two college contractors visited today. A small handful of eco-tourism boats passed through as well.

Ecological: 

  • The fall weather is setting in and today we saw the first bald eagle that we have spotted in quite a while (since late spring). The sound of the gulls on the island lifting into the air is distinctive enough that we noticed right away!
  • The sea lions have been enjoying lounging in the grassy areas around the low parts of island. They bicker constantly with each other but are just as quick to lay together in large groups when they are in need of a nap.

Break in Foggy Weather: Census + Pelican!

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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:

  • 96 Stellar sea lions
  • 383 California sea lions
  • 88 Harbour seals
  • 1 Elephant seal
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 52 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 1 Brown Pelican
  • 1 Oregon junco
  • 2 Fox sparrows
  • 15 Savannah sparrows
  • 1 Yellow-rumped warbler
  • 1 Short billed dowitcher
  • 14 Black turnstones
  • 8 Canada geese
  • 320 Glaucous winged gulls
  • 113 California gulls
  • 20 Heerman’s gulls

March 10 – Juncos and a Robin

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Cloudy, with fog in the morning
Wind: 0 – 16 knots from the W then NE in the morning, switching to SE in the afternoon
Air Temperature: High 10°C, Low 7°C
Ocean Temperature: 8.9°C

This morning, the Pearson students here for Project Week helped stack firewood in the cupboards outside of the Engine Building.

Four oregon juncos and a robin were seen flying around the southern part of Great Race.

This afternoon, four students took part in rescue diving scenarios with Chris. Afterwards a few of them went snorkelling around the jetty to check out the sea stars, a sea slug and other species.

Chunk continues to hang out near the Marine Science Centre.

Three ecotour boats came into the ecological reserve to share the sights, sounds and smells of the marine mammals and birds with their customers.

Junco hyemalis: Dark-eyed Junco ( Oregon junco)– Race Rocks Taxonomy

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raisanov10junco

The Oregon junco is the most common form of the Black-eyed junco found on the West Coast. Photo by Raisa Mira

These Juncos are common winter residents throughout southern Vancouver Island although this is the first one photographed at Race Rocks in November 2010.
Domain :Eukarya
Kingdom :Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Sub-Phylum: Vertebrata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family :Emberizidae
Genus: Junco
Species hyemalis (Linnaseus, 1758)
Common Name: (Black-eyed) Oregon Junco

On March 10 , 2015 Nick Townley took these images of the Junco at Race Rocks.

From The Cornell Lab a note on colour variation of the dark-eyed junco:

Regional Differences

“There is a huge range of geographic variation in the Dark-eyed Junco. Among the 15 described races, six forms are easily recognizable in the field and five used to be considered separate species until the 1980s. A field guide is the best place to look for complete illustration of ranges and plumages, but in general there are two widespread forms of the Dark-eyed Junco: “slate-colored” junco of the eastern United States and most of Canada, which is smooth gray above; and “Oregon” junco, found across much of the western U.S., with a dark hood, warm brown back and rufous flanks. Other more restricted variations include the slate-colored-like “white-winged” and Oregon-like “pink-sided” juncos of the Rockies and western Great Plains; and the Yellow-eyed Junco-like “red-backed” and “gray-headed” juncos of the Southwest.”

Other Members of the Class Aves at Race Rocks.

taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.