A lot of tour boats around today in this beautiful weather, although not much traffic on those last couple windy days we had
Maintenance
A couple new goose nests popped up so those have been taken care of although there are about 3 nests that were too far along to addle and two of nests have hatched, the third one will hatch any day now and we expect that to be the last of the nests that will hatch this season
Ecological
My baby Nemo left this morning, it was definitely past the date we had expected him to leave elephant seals don’t typically stick around past 3 months of age but he had been here for almost 4 months, elephant seal pups also typically leave together when they are born in the same rookery but these two left weeks apart.
Still 12 elephant seals around going through the molting process, a couple of them have completed molting
the pigeon guillemots are here today
I heard there might be two otters out in the north kelp patch now but have not confirmed
Also saw a humpback yesterday, first one I’ve seen in a while
A couple visitors on island observing the elephant seal molt also Laura’s marine science class are doing transect studies in the intertidal zone, yesterday and today
Maintenance
Solar has been great lately so I haven’t had to run the generator too much and I have been able to run the desalinator periodically on solar power, still waiting for the new desalinator and once that is up running I would love to pressure wash all of the buildings, they have quite a build up of algae on them.
Ecological
A young stellar sea lion was acting strangely on the jetty yesterday, it wasn’t opening its eyes and it was the last one off the jetty, instead of diving off it carefully backed off the jetty tail first, it didn’t appear frail or injured but it was acting very strange which led me to think it was blind, it is branded so I am going to look for it to see if I can get a clear picture of the brand and maybe identify this sea lion and get it help if it needs it.
three goose nests were not able to be addled this year, so we will have some goslings running around, but the rest of the nests have been successfully addled
still 13 elephant seals, a few young males and mostly older females plus the male pup is still here, he seems to be doing pretty well although he does go swimming I’m not sure if he has started hunting yet
as many of you noticed the cameras were down, that is because there was an issue without the router on Saturday, we just got replacement parts today and everything should be up running this also includes my internet which means I can post on this blog again
Ecological
A lot of elephant seals lately, there are 7 females and 4 males, this includes the pup
The males are very small, no big noses yet, they must be 2 or 3 years old, one of them has a green tag D018
the female pup left two days ago but the male pup is still here, he will probably leave any day now
only one of the females has been molting so far, the other 6 will probably start soon
I have counted 6 goose nests so far, I haven’t been able to addle them because I do need someone to help me fend off the geese while one takes the eggs. We do this is a population control method and have a permit to addle goose eggs
had someone out here to look at the desal, hopefully solving that issue soon
Maintenance
we’ve been getting a lot of solar but today is cloudy so I’ll run the generator and desal for a few hours
Ecological
the pups are having fun splashing around
there are 3 females altogether, one of them is quite young probably 2 or 3 years old the other two are much older and they will be molting soon, we should be expecting more females within the next couple weeks
no more male elephant seals around just the pup
not a lot of sea lions but there are plenty of harbour seals on the outer rocks
I have not spotted any goose nests yet but I’m sure it’ll happen soon, not looking forward to that, looks to be at least 8 nesting pairs on island
a few boats out today, fishing sailing and ecotours
Maintenance
Ran the desal for awhile, tank is topped up, hopefully, no more running it for hours every day
Ecological
It looks like the female pup might have gone in today, if she didn’t then she was very close, I will check again tomorrow morning if the pups are in the water
the male pup has been beside the house all day, so I know he didn’t go in
still one other male elephant on island, Bernard, the alpha
closer to 200 sea lions today, maybe due to the nice weather we’ve been having, also a lot of harbour seals on the south rock
the number of gulls is slowly increasing, at least from the noise level it seems like it
The desal quit on me a couple of times last night so I’m trying for a longer run tonight
Ecological
The pups still have not gone into the water, haven’t even gone near the jetty, they are both still beside the main house, they have been chewing on the grass a bit
the pigeon guillemots are back, looks to be a couple hundred of them
still around 100 sea lions, and about 50 harbour seals all together on the surrounding rocks
there are about 16 geese which I’m sure are starting to look for good nesting spots, there is also an increase in seagulls, I can tell from how noisy they are
