Tag Archives: stellar sea lion pups

Snow Receding

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Ecological Notes:

  • The California Sea Lions have made themselves at ease in the snow.

  • The large female Elephant Seal was very active and vocal today. She spent much of her time ,moving around the center of the island, from high spot to high spot, lifting high as though she was looking for something, all the while bellowing and “calling”
  • A first for me, while I had the camera out with the long lens, I saw a female Steller Sea Lion nursing  pup! With further scanning with the camera, I found 3 other nursing pairs.

    Female Steller nursing a pup!

  • I have been doing water-based tours of the area for nearly 20 years and  had noticed there were a lot more small sealions than I had ever seen here at Race Rocks. 

Facility Work:

  • Although shoveling the snow was futile, I’ve managed to cut tracks now so that I don’t have to wander too much to get from location to location!
  • With too much snow on the paths from the drifts, resorted to moving fuel old school in fuel cans.

  • Water is still frozen, but checked the heat tapes to make sure they were still working

Weather Events:

  • Thursday December 22:
    • Sky: Overcast with occasional flurries and freezing rain
    • Wind: N/NE winds 20-30 Knt
    • Sea: 1 meter swells
    • Temperature Low -8 oC, High -3 oC
  • Friday December 23:
    • Overcast 
    • Wind: ENE  to N mid-day 30knts, then back to ENE 10-15knots in the evening
    • Sea:  1 – 2 meter waves
    • Temperature Low  -1oC, High  3oC
    • Some snow melting
  • Tower weather electronics are still down, so wind numbers are estimates.

 

 

** All wildlife photos taken at the furthest distance possible, and may be cropped to improve detail! **

 

Weather – Current:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72

 

Weather – Past:

http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?

Stellar Pups

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles for most of the day with the Washington coast as clear as I’ve seen it so far, until early evening when fog came in from the east covering downtown Victoria from view.
  • Wind: Little to no breeze during the day with it picking up to 14-18 knots by 7pm.
  • Sky: Mostly cloudy with some sun
  • Water: calm throughout the day, a bit choppy at times

Boats/Visitors

  • Boat traffic was fairly minimum today with the usual commercial vessels in the distance and one or two whale watching boats.
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • There seems to be more stellar sea lion pups on the island, especially on the south rocks in the last few days, though I may just have not noticed them among the “piles” of bodies as they tend to lay all over each other.
  • Still lots of Black Turnstones, Cormorants, Eagles, Canada Geese and Gulls around
  • Only saw one of the male elephant seals around today

Other

  • Chopped some bigger logs into kindling for the woodstove this afternoon and cleaned up a lot of rocks of varying sizes that have been falling from the paths and bank walls between the lighthouse and science house.
  • Pretty chilly today, had frost on the ground and frozen puddles for the first time.