Tag Archives: tagged elephant seal

Elephant Seal Frustrations

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Tuesday September 24, 2024

This morning we woke up to fog lapping at the shores of the island. Its honestly very magical to be fully socked in on a rock that you know is completely surrounded by water. But also, this really throws the problem of a malfunctioning foghorn into sharp relief.

We were obviously not alone in this thought, as we read an 8am email from the Coast Guard team who will be out here tomorrow to take another stab at repairing it.

We spent the morning cleaning the solar panels, making the daily fence repairs, and doing some general tidying for the week.

We also tried to capture some more identification photos of the Elephant Seal who has been around. Last week we reported her with my best guess of her tag number based off a couple glimpses from when her tail was at just the right angle.

The group we reported her to responded right away with a bunch of interesting information about her life. She was born in Ano Nuevo California in 2013. She has been spotted there many, many times since then, during the winter months, and has even had two babies of her own!

But they have no sightings of her in other locations up until now! So that is super exciting!

From a Race Rocks perspective, she also seems to be a Newcomer. Elephant seals have full reign of the island, and the guys who visit here often know that, and take advantage of it….. as recorded in many previous blogs,

This gal, however, is hanging down on the rocks on the South side of the island amongst all of her Sea Lion relatives.

In addition, speaking with some of the previous Eco-Guardians, there is usually another seal (Beverly) who is the first to arrive. She has a pink tag.. so we know this is not her. Maybe there is new newcomer on the block….?

The previous eco-guardians also shared this neat image, that shows the tag color correspondence with animal birthplace!

What a cool and simple way to track such amazing animals!

Anyways, I will continue on trying to get a clear tag picture.

Whale Watching Vessels: 10

Private Vessels: 0

Weather: Foggy and Overcast Day, Winds SW picking up to 15 knts in the Evening

Census on a Cloudy Day

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Sunday September, 22

Census Day!

This morning, Scott and I headed up to the top of the tower for our weekly animal count.

We added the elephant seal to this week’s survey because she is still sticking around!

Yesterday we beefed up the fence on the West side of the island between the helipad and the generator shed. Since this one isn’t anchored into the bedrock, it has been taking quite a beating from the westerly winds.

Greg also dropped by yesterday and gave us some groceries for the week. The water cistern is quite low, so we have ceased using the desalinator, and are trying to be more conservative than normal with the water. Fingers crossed, Greg will be able to boat over some more water this week!

Today, we checked and topped up the batteries, and tidied up the basement in the main house. I can’t believe we only have a week left on the island!

Whale Watching Vessels: 15

Private Vessels: 4

Weather: Cloudy and Overcast Day, Winds SW picking up to 15 knts in the Afternoon

Animal Census:

Birds:

  • Gulls: 1155
  • Cormorants: 228
  • Oystercatchers: 3
  • Canada Goose: 6
  • Turnstones: 17 ** They are hard to see amongst all the sea lions

Mammals:

  • Stellar Sea Lion: 397
  • California Sea Lion: 780
  • Harbour Seal: 85
  • Elephant Seal female: 1

Elephant Seal!

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Friday September 20th

Last night while we were fixing the fence on the South Side of the Island that had been knocked over….Again.. we spotted a seal looking a little different than everyone else

Looking a little closer, we realized it was an elephant seal! Looks like a small female, and she is tagged, though we couldn’t get a good photo of it. We reported it to the biologists from California who implement that specific tagging study.

Also saw a couple more branded Sea Lions who we also reported, as well as a dead sea lion we spotted along the south side of the island at low tide.

Scott has worked his way through the pile of wood piled down near the Jetty, so the next Eco-Guardians will def be warm for a while.

Whale Watching Vessels: 10

Private Vessels: 0

Weather: Mix of Sun and Cloud. Pretty Calm day, wind pretty consistent around 5knts W.

And like everyday this month lots of humpbacks feeding all day!

Sunshine and a Sea Otter

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Today was the warmest, most beautiful day I’ve had yet! Clear blue sky, glassy calm water, and barely a breeze in the air.

As I took my morning coffee for a walk around the site I quickly found Ollie wrapped up in the kelp bed behind the student house. I crept down to the rocks, careful not to wake him and spent close to an hour watching him float in the sun, occasionally rubbing his fluffy little face. This is the closest Ollie encounter I’ve had so far and it was a great way to start my day.

When the weather is this nice you never want to go inside so I decided to tackle my outdoor to do list (see below for facility work). I took a few breaks to check on Ollie and he was in the same spot wrapped up in the same kelp until 5pm when I finally went inside. I saw a few porpoises from the kitchen window as I made dinner which was a nice surprise. Harbour porpoises are tiny and barely make a blip in the waters surface, so days like today are the only days I really get a chance to see them.

I was hoping to capture Ollie at sunset but of course he had moved on by the time I went back outside. I checked on the other animals around the main island and just as I got to the jetty guess who I found? Ollie again right off the rocks and swimming like he was a man on a mission! Considering adult sea otters eat a quarter of their body weight in food a day I was surprised I didn’t see him with any urchins or other snacks today.

In other animal news, one of the female elephant seals has a green flipper tag so I reached out to some contacts for further information. I was able to learn that she was tagged in 2023 in Año Nuevo, California! This is the first time that she has been sighted since then and the researchers were thrilled to hear she survived her first year. How cool!

This girl travelled nearly 1,500km to get here!

 

Facility Work:

Scrubbed solar panels – today is day 3 of not using the generator because we’ve had so much sun! It’s crucial to keep them clean and poop free so we can get the most out of them.

Weeding: greenery grows fast here including weeds. I spent a bit of time clearing out some areas that were growing back.

 

Wood pile: the firewood pile has taken over the majority of the area by the path so I attempted to organize the chaos for a few reasons. I wanted to clear the walking area for both humans and elephant seals, I also wanted to sort out which wood should be used first, if at all. I really had to brave my arachnophobia for this project but I survived! This should hopefully give the wood a chance to dry out better too, now that its not one giant pile.

 

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

July 14-16

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Weather for July 14:
Wind: W 15 to 30 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 3′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-13 C

Weather for July 15:
Wind: W 12 to 35 knots
Visibility: <1 to 10 NM
Sky: Fog for most of the day, with some patches of Partly Cloudy in afternoon
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 4′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 10-15 C

Weather for July 16:
Wind: W 19 to 38 knots
Visibility: 10-15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: 2′ chop in morning, up to 4′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-17 C

Maintenance:
When the solar panels were producing a lot of power on July 14 and 15, I used the desalinator to make a total of 700 litres of water. The output of the desalinator is 1.25 L per minute. It takes about 2.6 kW of energy to run the desalinator, on top of the regular 1.2 kW load of the island.

Today I lowered the boat into the water to grease the boat trailer wheels as well as finish installing and testing the new boat GPS and sonar.

Photo highlights from the past three days:

July 11, 12, 13, and Weekly Census

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Weather for July 11:
Wind: W 11 to 27 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 2′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 12-14 C

Weather for July 12:
Wind: W 18 to 35 knots
Visibility: 10 to 15 NM
Sky: Cloudy in morning, partly cloudy in afternoon
Sea: 1’ chop in morning, up to 4′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-15 C

Weather for July 13:
Wind: W 16 to 33 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 2′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 11-15 C

DND Blasting:
There was one DND blast at 14:05 on July 12 at nearby Rocky Point.

Visitors:
Greg and Bruce visited this afternoon to deliver 1,400 L of freshwater and a new first aid kit.

Maintenance:
I did the routine tasks of cleaning the solar panels and house windows, topping up the water in the 24 deep cycle batteries, fixing the electric fence, tidying, and maintaining the freshwater system.

Ecological notes:
There have been a lot of humpback whale activity over the past few days to the west, south, and east of Race Rocks. The whale watching boats have been active in the area. From what I hear on the VHF radio, they have been very pleased with the humpback viewing. I have not seen any whales swim through the ecological reserve.

I heard back about the tagged elephant seal, from the researcher at Año Nuevo Natural Reserve, in California. The juvenile seal, tagged H999 and K646, is a male who was born in January 2022. He was previously observed here and reported to the researchers on April 1, 2023. He has been moulting here for at least the past several weeks. He appears to be almost complete the moulting process, so he might be moving on soon to feed in the deep waters.

Weekly Census observed on July 13:
elephant seal: 1 juvenile (tagged H999, K646)
Steller sea lion: 3
harbour seal: 79
bald eagle: 2 adults, 1 juvenile
raven: 1
cormorant: 7
black oystercatcher: 6 adults, 1 chick (that I could spot today)
pigeon guillemot: 148
glaucous-winged gull: 387 adults, 120 chicks
surfbird: 12
killdeer: 4
western sandpiper: 3
barn swallow: 3

Photo highlights from the past three days:

Back on the Rocks!

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I am back on Race Rocks for the next two weeks, having been away since August. Greg drove me out yesterday afternoon in the boat Second Nature, arriving at 15:30. After unloading my gear and food, I reacquainted myself with the island’s building, systems, and other species.

There are two elephant seals on the island. One sub adult hauled out on the boat ramp has two green hind flipper tags labelled H999 and K646. They mentioned by Derek on the April 1, 2023 census: https://racerocks.ca/animal-census-31/. Green tags usually signify the seal was tagged as a pup at Ano Nuevo Reserve, near Santa Cruz, California. I have put in a request with the researchers there to find out about the sighting history of the seal. The other seal here right now is a female adult, who has been hauled out near the bushes on the centre of the island and made some trips to the water, was probably one of the mothers from the winter breeding season.

The most populous birds right now are the few hundred nesting glaucous-winged gulls and chicks. There are still many nests with eggs yet to hatch. The pigeon guillemots are active in a few places around the island: near the jetty, blasted rocks north and west of the helicopter pad, and the south side of the island. I have yet to see any oystercatcher chicks or the barn swallows that have been seen recently.

Weather for July 7 afternoon and evening:
Wind: W 32 knots
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: Clear
Sea: 3′ chop
Air temperature: 14 C

Weather for July 8:
Wind: W between 10 and 31 knots
Visibility: 10-15 NM
Sky: Partly Cloudy
Sea: rippled in morning, up to 3′ chop in afternoon
Air temperature: 12-15 C

I gave the solar panels a good scrub this morning to get off the built up gull guano. I have also been monitoring the freshwater levels after a couple recent leaks that have been fixed.

Here are some photos from the past two days:

July 9 and 10

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Ecological Notes:

  • On Saturday afternoon, a southern resident orca pod went through Race Passage, just north of the ecological reserve. Someone was warning boats over the VHF radio to reduce their speed, as they were “in the path of endangered southern resident killer whales.” All boats appeared to oblige. For a while, the very large pod was spread out from the Bentinck Island, at the west side of the mouth of Pedder Bay to well past William Head to the east, at least 4km or 2NM. I watched the pod for a while through binoculars and saw an orca fully breach out of the water. I did not get a photo of the breach, but it was spectacular. Then the pod travelled south to the east of Race Rocks, based on the group of ecotour boats I could see watching the pod from a safe distance.
  • The gull chicks are still popping out, with many nests having one to three chicks. There are still some gulls tending to eggs.
  • See the photo gallery below for more ecological happenings from the past two days.

Weather:

  • Yesterday (July 9):
    • Sky: Overcast, then cloudy throughout rest of day
    • Wind: W 15-30 kts
    • Sea: rippled, 1′ chop in evening
    • Temperature Low 13oC, High 16oC
  • Today (July 10):
    • Sky: Part cloudy
    • Wind: W 3-24 kts
    • Sea: rippled, 1′ chop in afternoon
    • Temperature Low 14oC, High 17oC

Visitors:

  • No visitors.

Facility Work:

  • Scrubbed and squeegeed solar panels, topped up water in battery bank, routine tidying and checking infrastructure around the island.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve.

Here are photo highlights from the past two days. Click on the photos for larger views and captions.

Gull Chicks Everywhere

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It is great to be back as the Ecoguardian at Race Rocks. I have been lucky enough to spend a total of almost seven months here between 2014 and my last shift which ended on September 1, 2020. I have been spending the past three and a bit days reacquainting myself with the island and infastructure. I have not stayed here before in July, so it is taking some adjustment to live in harmony and not disturb hundreds of nesting gulls. It drastically limits where I can go on the island.

Ecological Notes:

  • The glaucous-winged gull population is increasing everyday with lots of chicks hatching. I do my best to avoid getting close to the nests. I move quickly by the ones near doors and pathways on which I need to travel to get to the energy building, jetty and lighthouse.
  • A pod of orcas swam westward through the ecological reserve on Saturday, July 2, then went eastward in Race Channel. The orcas continued to head eastward, with at one point 14 ecotour boats viewing them from a safe distance.
  • A juvenile male elephant seal, tagged D018/D019, has been hanging around here for a while this spring and early summer. I noticed the tags this weekend, so I could confirm it was the same seal that Ecoguardian Joan spotted on the seal’s arrival on the island on May 19. Here is a link to the tagged resight histories, when I spotted this seal in April 2020 and reported the details to the Director of the Año Nuevo Reserve, in California. The brief version is he was tagged in February 2017 as a pup in Año Nuevo. He was first observed at Race Rocks in April 2018. He was again spotted here in April 2019, December 2019, and April 2020. His proboscis (nose) and body has grown a lot in the past couple years. I wonder what adventures he has gone on in that time.
  • I know of two black oystercatcher chicks that I have seen through the binoculars and  long lens of the camera. One is hanging out near the jetty with its parents. The other is hanging out near east bay with its parents. The dark grey fluff ball chicks are hard to spot, as they blend in well with rocks.
  • See the photos below for these and more ecological sights.

Weather:

  • The wind has been consistently coming from the west over the past four days that I have been here.
  • Friday and Saturday were part cloudly with lots of sun to fully charge the solar panels by 17:00 both days.
  • Sunday and Monday were overcast with periods of rain and fog.
  • The temperature in the past four days has ranged between 11 to 14 oC.

Visitors:

  • Greg drove the boat on the afternoon of Friday, July 1 to do the shift changeover between Jillian and I. Thanks, Jillian, for leaving the place in such great shape.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby throughout this long weekend.

Here are photo highlights from the past few days. Click on the photos for a larger view.