Tag Archives: tagged

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.

A view from the top

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Ecological Notes:

  • 1 Female Elephant Seal
  • 1 Male Elephant Seal, appears to be last year’s Beachmaster
  • First time I’ve personally noticed this type of tag …. On the Female Elephant Seal

Tag with holes in a pattern

 

harlequin ducks

Facility Work:

  • Cleaning and firewood prep for the next Ecoguardians
  • Looks like tomorrow morning will be all about clearing the pier area of debris and redoing the electric fence. The swells and incoming wind knocked concrete blocks right off the pier.

DND events:

  • 2 days of blasting with noticeable reactions from the Scea Lions.

Noted Vessel Traffic:

  • 3 different Ecotourism vessels
  • Several Sailboats back and forth, cutting between the reserve and Bentinck Island

 Feature Event:

  • Took a few Pictures from the top of the light while I was doing the animal Census.

 

Weather Events:

  • Mostly average winds from the west. Wednesday greeted us with 30-40 knot southeasterly wind, with very large swells!

 

** 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?

Female elephant seal

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Eco guardian notes: This morning another new female elephant seal arrived during the night. We now have five females four pups.  This new animal has two green tags E103 E135. She has returned to molt on the island for the last 4 years. Welcome home.

Elephant seal pups: 4
Elephant seal female: 5
Visitors: 0
Facility Work. Getting ready for new stairs on main house..
Vessel Traffic:  2 sport boats
 
Weather– Current: http://www.victoriaweather.ca/current.php?id=72
Weather–Past:  http://www.victoriaweather.ca/station.php?id=72

February 7th census

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Laura Verhegge celebrating her 50th birthday at Race Rocks, sharing her love of nature with students near and far.

Weather: Stormy weekend! Steady 30knots with bursts of 50knots.

Visitors/Traffic: We were visited by the Marine Biology class and Biodiversity classes last week, so cool!

Courtney Edwards regailing the Marine Biology students with tales of Lighthouse keepers past.

Ecological Notes:

Sebastion hasn’t moved since his mom left, his little flippers can’t reach the ground with that big fat belly.

We had another mom wean her pup and leave Race Rocks on February 4th 2021 (Rhi-Rhi). We’ve been hoping for the 3 pups to ‘pod-up’ but no luck yet, the newest weaned pup is still too fat to move. The students have been studying the Steller Sea Lion carcass on the NE side of Race Rocks, with 25-30 eagles feeding on the carcass early in the mornings. Some of the students spotted a new dead California Sea Lion just S of the Lighthouse, it’s a branded seal with a tag on it, no obvious sign of death.

After Jafar’s last beating he’s been giving the Beachmaster a wide berth, but still relying on the boat ramp sneaker move.

Eagles feasting on the Steller carcass.

Jafar got his nose shredded fighting the Beachmaster, but it hasn’t scared him off the island.

Census:

Gulls: 79

Cormorants: 300

Eagles: 4

California Sea Lions: 149

Steller Sea Lions: 89

Elephant Seals: 9

Harbour Seals: 6

Turnstones: 0

Killdeer: 18

 

The dead California Sea Lion.

Tag matches the brand on this dead California Sea Lion.

   

Storms on the Way

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Weather Today: 

  • Sky partly cloudy, intermittent rain
  • Visibility
  • 20-35 knots W- SW throughout the day
  • Sea state: Swells up to 1.5 m, 1-2 foot chop

Visitors: Few boats through the reserve today as the seas have been a bit rough. A few eco-tourism boats in late afternoon watching a humpback whale just outside of the reserve.

Ecological: 

  • Not many unusual bird sightings this week as it has been incredibly windy. Quite a few more cormorants this week!
  • Erica, or GE103 has been enjoying napping around race rocks still this week. Her favorite spot is the jetty, although if there are too many sea lions she will venture higher onto the middle part of the island for some proper rest.

Census: 

  • 69 Harbour seals
  • 23 Glaucous-winged gulls
  • 163 California gulls
  • 43 Brandt’s cormorants
  • 263 Stellar sea lions
  • 695 California sea lions
  • 2 Bald eagles
  • 1 Elephant seall
  • 1 Sea otter
  • 1 Humpback whale (just outside of the reserve)
  • 10 Black turnstones
  • 5 Savannah sparrows

Stormy Seas

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Weather:

  • Sky partly cloudy, sun/blue sky
  • Visibility 15 NM
  • Wind 26-30 knots W
  • Sea state: swells up to 5 m (high enough to cover the south islands!)

Visitors: 

  • Greg visited briefly yesterday to top up supplies before the stormy weather
  • Yesterday morning a coastguard team arrived by helicopter to do some work on the lighthouse

Ecological Observations: 

  • The sea lions and other animals have come further onto land than usual, presumably because of the stormy seas. Interestingly, the seagulls species have been mixing and not fighting at all as they need to remain closer together in the tough weather.
  • There have been quite a few more geese over the past few days. They have been enjoying the puddles created by the rain and grazing the greener areas now that the gull nesting season is over.

August 31 – Weekly Census and Shift Change

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Wind: W 2-15 knots
Sea State: calm
Visibility: 5-15 NM
Sky: partly cloudy in early morning, then clear
Temperature: 11-17 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 411.90 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

Census results recorded this morning at low tide for the mammals and throughout the day for the birds:
26 steller sea lions
110 california sea lions
1 sea otter
290 harbour seals
1 Canada goose
7 pelagic cormorants
1,232 california gulls
251 glaucous-winged gulls
98 gull chicks
2 black oystercatchers
7 black turnstones
1 song sparrow

There were a lot of eco tourism boats passing through the ecological reserve today. An outrigger canoeist paddled through the main channel in the mid morning and again in the early afternoon.

Tomorrow is my last day as the Ecoguardian. Mara and Kai are returning for a few months. I have enjoyed being back on this wonderful island for the past 17 days, learning on the edge where the land meets the sea meets sky. Race Rocks is a unique place that couldn’t exist without the work of Pearson students, staff, faculty, alumni and volunteers.

Here are some sights from around the island today:

 

 

 

 

August 21

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Wind: every direction throughout the day 0-24 knots
Sea State: calm in morning, rippled in afternoon
Visibility: 0-10 NM
Sky: fog and patches of rain in morning to mid afternoon, partly cloudy in afternoon to evening
Temperature: 12-18 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.15 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The juvenile female elephant seal tagged V173 slid her way up the boat ramp this morning. She is looking healthy and well fed. She has visited several times over the past few weeks, as well as in the spring to moult and briefly in December. She was born last year on Drakes Beach, in Point Reyes National Seashore, in California. Researchers tagged her as a weaned pup on February 28, 2019.

I did some maintenance around the island: changed the oil in the backup generator, tidied paths with the trimmer to make it easier to move fuel and equipment with carts, cleaned the solar panels, washed windows on the main house, and pressure washed the stairs leading up to the door of the lighthouse to get rid of the slippery bird poop. Greg brought 800 litres of fresh water, which we pumped up from the jetty to the fresh water tank.

Here are two photos from today:

August 16 – Returning Sea Lions

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Wind: from NE in morning, SE in afternoon, W in evening – between 2 to16 knots
Sea State: calm in morning and rippled in afternoon
Visibility: 15 NM
Sky: clear
Temperature: 16-25 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 412.54 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

While I have only provided the conditions for today, I did step onto the Rock just after noon yesterday. It’s great to be back, having spent the whole winter and the first few weeks of spring here. I will be here for the next two and a half weeks, 100 days shorter than my last stint.

I feel very fortunate to be a part of the amazing team of Pearson students, alumni, staff, volunteers, donors and researchers who keep this Ecological Reserve going.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening reacquainting myself with this wonderful place, practicing how to avoid disturbing the young gulls, who blend in well with the rocks as they like to hide beside the paths and in plants.

This weekend, there have been a lot of boats (pleasure craft and eco tour boats) taking advantage of the nice weather. The only visitor to the island, other than me, was Greg, who drove me out here from Pearson and brought back Mara and Kai.

In the previous log post, on August 13, a branded sea lion with an attached flasher (fishing lure) was mentioned. The steller sea lion is branded O-19. Bryan Wright, the Marine Mammal Biometrician/Project Leader at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, gave us an update on the history of the stellar sea lion:

He was captured and branded by us (ODFW, along with WDFW) at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River on February 2, 2012.  We don’t know his exact age but he was probably 5-7 years old at the time of capture, making him 12-15 now.  He then wasn’t seen again until July 21, 2016, at Tatoosh Island off the tip of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington.  He was then next seen back at Bonneville Dam from August-November, 2019.

Bryan also passed along an interesting article that was just published called “California Sea Lion (Zalophus Californianus) Monitoring In The Lower Columbia River, 1997–2018” (Brown et al 2020). Click here to read the abstract of the article.

See below from photos from the past two days.

Windy Week and Sea Lion Update!

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky clear
  • Wind 15-20 knots W
  • Sea state: calm, rippled
  • It has been very windy this week. Most days the wind has hovered around 30 knots, sometimes as much as 35+ knots! It has been overcast intermittently, and we did receive some rainfall.

Visitors/Marine Traffic: 

  • Greg visited today with some supplies. Thanks Greg!
  • Since it has been so windy, there has been very little boat traffic. Yesterday we saw one small pleasure craft playing in the waves near Pedder Bay, and one coastguard ship passed by earlier today. A few small vessels and fishing boats passed by but no vessels entered the reserve.

Ecological:

  • Animal activity has been very quiet due to our stormy weather
  • The geese seem to be moving on now- there are fewer every day.
  • There are not many more seagull nests beginning but the seagulls have chosen their nesting locations and are defending them from other breeding pairs.
  • There is one sea lion who has been coming onto the jetty and does not move away from us as the others do. We believe this is the same one that we observed last year who seemed to have a propeller injury on his head. It’s interesting that he has been able to survive with seemingly quite a bit of behavioral impact due to the head trauma.