strawberry tree | Race Rocks Ecological Reserve-

Weather Today:

Visitors and traffic:

On Sunday we had a burst of whale watching activity, some around North Rock but primarily south of the reserve near the Rosedale Reef marker.
We have had some supplies (water, etc.) delivered over the last couple of days.

Ecological/Weather Notes:

We woke up in a fog bank on Monday and the fog has stuck around, although with periods of clarity. It sounds like Vancouver Island is going to continue getting wet weather over this week.
As mentioned above, on Monday there were 2 minke whales (?) in the general area of North Rock and some time later 2 or 3 humpbacks south of us. A good handful of of whale watching/eco tourism vessels came by to get close to the action.
Over the last couple of days we’ve been seeing whales daily, usually out about a kilometre in the strait but once or twice they’ve come in closer to Rosedale Rock.
Mara spotted some brightly coloured Harlequin sea ducks in the water just off the shore south-east of us.
This afternoon two large bald eagles visited. Going off of the stray seagull leg and patch of feathers near the house, they were resting after a snack.
As the census shows below the sea lion numbers reflect the colder weather moving in and them moving out!
Yesterday on the jetty, we spotted a pile of what we think are regurgitated squid quills and eyeballs.
Garry Fletcher kindly gave us a tip about the ‘mystery berries’ from the last log post. He suspects them to be from a Strawberry Tree (Arbutus Unedo) and was even able to share pictures of a tree and its fruit. Thank you, Garry!