Tag Archives: sea lion

21 Geese

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 10-25 NW
  • Sky: Partly Cloudy
  • Water: Choppy under a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Had a couple visitors come by throughout the week, to check out the crane and desalinator

Maintenance

  • Now that the fresh water tank is almost full, will start pressure washing some of the lichen off the buildings

Ecological

  • Slightly less sea lions than last week
  • still no elephant seals on the main island but I think I spotted one on one of the outer rocks
  • a lot of Canada geese lately

Census

  • California Sea Lions – 674
  • Stellar Sea Lions – 702
  • Harbour Seal – 81
  • Elephant Seal – maybe 1 male
  • Cormorants – 388
  • Gulls – 293
  • Fox Sparrows – 16
  • Canada Geese – 21
  • Black Turnstones – 28
  • Eagle – 2
  • Oyster Catchers – 8

Entangled Sea Lions

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 20-30 NE
  • Sky: Partly cloudy
  • Water: Waves about a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • A few ecotours and fishing boats going by

Maintenance

  • ran the generator and the desalinator, now that we had a good rainfall the cistern is filling up, hopefully start pressure washing more soon
  • The fence hasn’t needed to be repaired in awhile but the sea lions are starting to gather more around the lighthouse which can be an issue

Ecological

  • unfortunately still no elephant seals, they should be showing up any day now
  • the snow goose is still around
  • there are two entangles sea lions, it doesn’t look like the usual plastic packing tape but this time looks like fishing line, two of them have it tightly wrapped around their heads, I have notified marine rescue and will keep an eye on these sea lions and hopefully we can help them out

Marine Mammals of Race Rocks

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A slide show by Ron Bellamy of Sooke August 2018

Census and an odd sea lion

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knts W
  • Sky: Partly cloudy/overcast
  • Water: Ripply

Boats/Visitors/Sightings

  • Quite a few ecotour boats in the area today, especially in Race Passage

Bird Notes

  • The first set of seagull chicks are growing fast – one of the first things to develop are long legs. I spotted some of them flapping their wings in imitation of the adults, but they are still a long way from flying.

Mammal Notes

  • A lone sea lion made it all the way up on the main island until the guest residence! It would get aggressive if I got even slightly close to it. I first thought it might be injured, but I saw no scars or bleeding anywhere.

Census

  • Elephant Seals
    • Male = 3
    • Female = 0
  • Sea Lions
    • California = 1
    • Steller = 0
  • Seagulls = 350 adults, ~70 babies (hard to estimate)
  • Pigeon Guillemot = 60
  • Eagles = 4
  • Oystercatchers = 8 adults, 4 babies (haven’t spotted any new chicks since last week)
  • Harbour Seals = 50
  • Geese = 3

Rainbows & Battle Scars

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Weather

  • Visibility: clear, 15 miles throughout the day
  • Wind: 23-28 knots SW this morning, died down by noon
  • Sky: mostly sunny with some clouds
  • Water: rough this morning with 1 meter swells then calmed down throughout the day

Boats/Visitors

  • Lots of commercial vessels including a large logging barge
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • The male elephant seals continue to fight for dominance. Didn’t notice the smallest of the original 5 around today after he lost a fight yesterday against another adolescent. The winner of that fight got into it with one of the two large males and is still around but has some fresh wounds.
  • Still one elephant seal pup here that has taken a liking to sleeping on the doorstep of my house!

 

A tug pulls a huge logging barge by Race Rocks Island

Family photo!

Huge logging barge being towed by a tug passing by Race Rocks.

Fresh battle wounds after facing a much larger male than himself.

Elephant Seal Duo

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Weather

  • Visibility: mostly clear in the day with fog and a bit of snow in the evening
  • Wind: Light gusts throughout the day
  • Sky: Cloudy with sunny periods
  • Water: a bit rough, 1 meter swells at times

Boats/Visitors

  • had the usual ‘4 ever wild’ whale watching boat go by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Still a decent amount of sea lions on and around the island.
  • The two big male elephant seals have been mostly keeping their distance from each other but today Bernard, the larger of the two, asserted a bit of dominance by moving closer inland towards Big George, the smaller of the two.

Other

  • DND blasting has taken a break for the past few weeks which has been nice.

Windy Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: very clear throughout the day, 15 Miles
  • Wind: heavy winds all day reaching upwards of 33 knots
  • Sky: sunny with no clouds
  • Water: rough, 3 foot swells

Boats/Visitors

  • Boat traffic was pretty minimum today with the rough water
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Not much has changed in terms of wildlife on the island in the last few days. Consistent number of gulls, sea lions, eagles, black turnstones, canada geese and cormorants with one or two large male elephant seals.

A Break From the Blasts

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Weather

  • Visibility: Clear throughout the day
  • Wind: Light breezes throughout the day with strong gusts up to 40 knots overnight
  • Sky: Cloudy with sunny break
  • Water: a bit choppy, one foot swells in the morning

Boats/Visitors

  • Boat traffic was pretty minimum today, whale watching boat cruised by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Not much has changed in terms of wildlife on the island in the last few days. Consistent number of gulls, sea lions, eagles, black turnstones, canada geese and cormorants with one or large two male elephant seals.
  • Haven’t seen any whales of any kind yet unfortunately.

Other

  • DND blasting has taken a break for the past week which has been nice.

Mystery Raptor

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 6-10 NE throughout day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • had one whale watching boat cruise by
  • no visitors today

Ecological

  • saw a large brown raptor of some kind. I think it was a Red-tailed Hawk
  • lots of killdeer around
  • large elephant seal male is still on the island

Other

  • a lot of DND blasts today, very startling for the sea lions.

Less Sea Lions Today

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 5-13 NE throughout day
  • Sky: sunny with cloudy periods
  • Water: mostly calm

Boats/Visitors

  • didn’t see any eco tours today
  • lots of shipping vessels in the distance as usual
  • no visitors today

Ecological

  • number of sea lions hanging around seems to be going slightly down
  • consistent number of seagulls and cormorants

Other

  • lots of DND blasts today.