Tag Archives: Steller Sea lion

Tuesday, May 23rd

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles
  • Wind: between 20-40 knots throughout the day
  • Sky: few clouds
  • Water: choppy, no more than a metre

Boats/Visitors

  • Maybe one or two, too windy for many boats to be around

Ecological

  • 14 elephant seals scattered around today

Monday, May 22nd

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: between 0-10 throughout the day, very light
  • Sky: clear
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Quite a few boats around of all sorts fishing, sailing, ecotours and people just wanting to relax on the water

Ecological

  • 14 elephant seals scattered around today

Beautiful Sunrise, DND Blasting today

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0.6 SE this morning at 5:30am but has since picked up to 20 SW
  • Sky: few clouds in the more and more came rolling in later in the day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • Some ecotours today
  • Saw a lot of boats in surrounding waters, not within the ecological reserve boundaries, was a nice day for fishing out there

Ecological

  • 11 elephant seals counted today however there is one I did not see that is usually around so I know she is around here somewhere making the count 12

Other

  • there was some DND blasting across the water today

Census day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles, a bit foggy this morning but burned off by noon to partly cloudy
  • Wind: 10-15 NW got continuously more calm through the day
  • Sky: partly cloudy throughout the day
  • Water: stayed consistently calm

Boats/Visitors

  • A lot of ecotours came through today
  • Had a couple visitors, come by with Kyle this morning and then had Kyle and Guy come back this afternoon to help me out with a couple things

Ecological

  • Census day!
    1. Steller (Northern) Sea Lions: 35
    2. Harbour Seals: 44
    3. California Sea Lions: 23
    4. Elephant Seals: 13
    5. Seagulls unspecified: 291
    6. Pigeon Guillemots: 152
    7. Cormorants unspecified: 29
    8. Canada Geese: 14
    9. Savannah Sparrows: 0
    10. Harlequin Ducks: 8 (2 female, 6 male)
    11. Black Oystercatchers: 8
    12. Bald Eagles: 2 (2 adults, 1 immature)
  • There are 2 more elephant seals than usual! so thats exciting, they stayed scattered today on the path from the lighthouse to the jetty
  • As you can see there have been a decrease in sea lions, they are no longer on the southern rocks and have moved to the main island one group on the north side and another group on the southside
  • There have been an increase in gulls, pigeon guillemots and cormorants, also the harlequins are back, I did not see them last week
  • There has also been an increase in harbour seals, when I counted them they were mostly all on the Middle Rocks but have since scattered about the South Islands as well

A Lot of Ecotours on a Sunny Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: 0-5 Southwest, stayed pretty calm throughout the day
  • Sky: Some clouds in the morning but more sunshine throughout the day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • quite a few ecotours came around today

Ecological

  • Counted 10 elephant seals today, they were spread out between the front of the house and the water by the jetty
  • There was a large male Stellar sea lion with some fishing gear caught on him but I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture

 

 

Couple Killdeer

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: Morning 5-10 NE stayed below 10 most of the day but picked up later
  • Sky: Some clouds with bits of sunshine throughout the day
  • Water: calm

Boats/Visitors

  • quite a few ecotours came around today

Ecological

  • Counted 9 elephant seals today, I imagine the other two were in the water during the sunny periods today
  • Also spotted two killdeer hanging around the elephant seals in front of the house

 

Visitors and sunshine

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 Miles
  • Wind: Morning 5-10 NE looks like it will pick up throughout the day
  • Sky: Some clouds but very sunny and warm in the morning, clouds came rolling in, in the afternoon
  • Water: calm, some rolling waves no more than 1 metre

Boats/Visitors

  • A couple eco tours came around
  • The first year Pearson College Marine Science students had their final exam here today thankfully it was nice and sunny throughout their whole exam

Ecological

  • Looks to be the same 11 elephant seals, they did decide it was too sunny to stay on land today and a few of them went for a swim, see elephant seal train to the ocean in photographs below

 

 

Cenusus Day

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 Miles
  • Wind: Morning 0-5 NW picked up in the afternoon, varied between 10-20 knots NW
  • Sky: Overcast, bit of rain throughout the day
  • Water: calm

Ecological

  1. Steller (Northern) Sea Lions: 45
  2. Harbour Seals: 30
  3. California Sea Lions: 37
  4. Elephant Seals: 11
  5. Seagulls unspecified: 278
  6. Pigeon Guillemots: 125
  7. Cormorants unspecified: 16
  8. Canada Geese: 19
  9. Savannah Sparrows: 12
  10. Harlequin Ducks: 0
  11. Black Oystercatchers: 8
  12. Bald Eagles: 2 (2 adults, 1 immature)

Boats

  • had a few eco tours come through morning and late afternoon

Maintenance

  • Scrubbed some of the solar panels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Census of Birds and Mammals

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Weather

  • Visibility: 10 miles, later 15 until…
  • 19:35 onwards foggy, 100 yards.
  • Fog horn sounded for over 3 hours.
  • Wind: 0-5 knots South East.
  • In the evening 15-25 West.
  • Sky: overcast, then sunny, then foggy.
  • Water: calm

Mount Baker near sunrise.

Strangely disturbed water.

Ecological

  • Census day! Counting stuff!
  • Found what to me is a solo mystery bird.
  • Surprised to see no Black Turnstones around today.
  1. Steller (Northern) Sea Lions: 53
  2. Harbour Seals: 35
  3. California Sea Lions: 29
  4. Elephant Seals: 13 (11 on Great Race, 2 on Middle Rock)
  5. Seagulls unspecified: 304
  6. Pigeon Guillemots: 225
  7. Cormorants unspecified: 21
  8. Canada Geese: 18
  9. Savannah Sparrows: 10
  10. Harlequin Ducks: 9 (6 males and 3 females)
  11. Black Oystercatchers: 7
  12. Bald Eagles: 2 (2 adults, 1 immature)
  13. Mystery bird: 1
  14. Black Turnstones: ZERO!

Maintenance

  • Ran the desalinator.

Boats

  • Lots of eco-tours cameth by today. Over 10!
  • Some of them were perhaps a bit too close to the mammals at times?
  • Kyle brought me my final food order; milk, red and green bell peppers, sour cream, and onions.
  • Eerily reminiscent of the Thin White Duke’s diet..

Visitors

  • Kyle with food stuff.

April Ends Now

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 25-30 knots West
  • Sky: clear
  • Water: 2′ chop

Ecological

  • The same eight elephant seals on Great Race today.

Maintenance

  • Added 55 gallons of diesel to the tidy tank.
  • Cleaned the solar panels.
  • Started work on the month end report.

Boats

  • Saw four stationary whale watching boats to the west of the reserve.
  • I suspect they had found some whales, although it was too far for me to spy anything.
  • Some of them passed by the reserve afterwards.