Tag Archives: whale watching

More Disappointing Eco-Tourism Activity

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This afternoon we observed a vessel enter the reserve while a humpback whale was present. The whales typically maintain position in the strong currents for upwards of 30 minutes, appearing to be feeding on plankton as it’s pushed towards them.

Today a humpback whale entered the reserve to hover in the current. Within 2 minutes an eco-tourism vessel came speeding towards it from the Victoria direction. The boat entered the reserve behind the whale, and the whale turned back the way it had come to move away from it and avoid becoming trapped. The whale was deterred from remaining in the reserve as they normally would do and made swiftly towards Victoria as the boat followed it closely away from Race Rocks.

We have observed vessels conducting themselves in this way on many other occasions, but often they leave the reserve quickly when we make ourselves visible.

 

A Busy Day On The Water

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Weather: 

  • Blue skies, some clouds
  • Visibility 20+ miles
  • Wind 5-10 knots W
  • Water rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Many whale watching vessels today. With the increasing number of sea lions hauling out on great race rock, these eco tourism boats contrast sharply (in relatively close quarters) against the wildlife looking to rest on the rocks.
  • The high traffic in conjunction with the sea lions provides a great opportunity to display the proximity of these vessels from the wildlife. See the videos and photos below:

 

Ecological: 

  • An increasing number of sea lions hauling out on all rocks.
  • Young seagulls can be seen strengthening their wings, flapping and hopping 3 feet in the air. They play games with sticks and other debris, aggressively keeping the objects from their siblings looks to be practice for protecting precious food in the future.
  • Mentioned in a previous post, I was able to get a picture of the sea lion with the identifying gash in its side.

Sea lion with a cut (centre of photo)

Census:

  • 350 – 400 seagulls
  • 24 harbour seals
  • 68 sea lions
  • A handful of oystercatchers and cormorants (roughly 5-10 of each)

Disappointing Activity

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Ecological:

Today we saw a group of orcas (4-6) within the ecological reserve, and noted that there was a horde of whale watching/ecotourism boats that followed. Shortly after the pod entered the reserve, we observed 12-15 boats convening in the area, forming a wall of motorized vessels on the border of the reserve. A diving boat was also present in the reserve, and had approximately 5 divers in the water at the same time.

While the ecotourism boats may have maintained an “appropriate” distance, it was undeniable that their approach from one direction as a large group negatively affected the wildlife. The diving boat had divers in the water, which inevitably means it is difficult to move away.

After only a few minutes of the boats approaching the orcas departed, heading away from the approaching boats, which gave chase.

Weather:

  • Wind: 10-15kn
  • Sky: Partially overcast
  • Visibility: 10mi
  • Water: Small waves not in excess of 0.5m

Boats/Visitors:

We have had no visitors over the last while, short of Greg delivering water yesterday.

First Hatching Eggs!

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Weather:

  • Wind: 10 – 20 knots
  • Sky: Overcast, short showers
  • Visibility: 10 miles
  • Water: Rippled

Boats/Visitors:

The winds have calmed down over the past couple of days, so we have been seeing more whale watching boats, about 10-15 per day.

Today Greg came with a college vessel with two tanks of water and one yesterday.

Ecological:

The oyster catcher eggs have hatched! Today we spotted two chicks with the two parents on the rocks in front of the crane nearby the jetty. The adults were picking food from the waters edge and carrying it to feed the chicks. We spotted one more pair with one chick on the other side of the jetty. It seems that only one of their two eggs hatched.

We are expecting the seagull eggs to hatch soon as well, as we found a deceased chick on our pathway yesterday that was nearly fully developed. The nearby shell appeared to have been pecked as well as the chick itself. There are eagle feathers scattered around the island from the eagles that have been swooping through the flocks of seagulls, but we are inclined to suspect that another seagull broke this egg due to the apparent pecking.

There are four large male elephant seals here moulting, and while they are fairly docile they have a hard time hearing us coming, and can be aggressive if they are taken by surprise.

Maintenance: 

We are still waiting on the new desalinator, but now have a sufficient fresh water supply thanks to Greg! He also brought us a new foot for the water pump which we installed. We continue to collect shingles as they blow off of the roofs awaiting repair. Kai is excited about his new project: repairing a ceased water pump.

Divers And Disappearing Eggs

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Weather: 

  • 5-10mi visibility
  • Clear skies
  • 25kn wind
  • Small whitecaps

Boats/Visitors: 

We had three tours from the college over the last two days, two today and one yesterday. Now, with the seagulls becoming more aggressive every day, non-essential visits restart after nesting season.

The whale watching continues, with roughly 10-15 boats a day – most coming in close (inside of 25m from the jetty, and other areas of greater rock). The recreational/rental boats are becoming more frequent, and sometimes appear to be operated a bit dangerously. Today we saw a small speedboat boat going against the current passing the jetty, and a large tour catamaran came around the corner and they both had to manoeuvre quickly to be a safe distance from each other

We noticed a dive boat in the marine protected area, with five to six divers on it. After holding position in middle channel for about 15 minutes they entered the water.

Ecological:

The injured gosling is nowhere to be found, yesterday and the day before it could be seen taking shelter in the long grass beside the house. The oyster catcher nests seem to have been robbed, perhaps by the seagulls. The eggs are missing and the adult birds seem distressed.

We’ve been seeing bald eagles every few days. They kill seagulls and leave them dismembered all around. When an eagle appears, the gulls take flight as one big cloud and seem to try and chase the eagle away.

Maintenance:

We were able to get up and running in the Race Rocks whaler. Following the other boat between the two trips today, we went to the college dock and back for training purposes.

Extreme Tides & Extraordinary Critters

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Weather: 

  • Visibility: 10-14 miles
  • Wind: 10-20 knots
  • Sky: Slightly cloudy clearing to sunny and clear
  • Water: rippled

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Yesterday there were 20+ whale watching vessels in the reserve.
  • Today we had a group of 9 from Pearson College visit and tour the island.

Ecological:

  • Lately we have been having very low tides, and today we spotted two gumboot chitons on the jetty track in an area that would not normally be exposed.
  • The younger goslings are learning to swim!
  • The two large male elephant seals appear to be beginning to moult. Today we noticed that one of them has some cracking skin in his chin area.
  • Over the past few days we have noticed more bald eagles, and notably a few young ones.

 

 

Spotted: Turkish Marsh Gladiolus!

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Weather:

  • Visibility: 5 miles
  • Wind: 12 knots
  • Sky: Overcast in the morning, clearer skies in the second half of the day
  • Water: Calm

Boats/Visitors:

Greg came again on Tuesday to bring us more water, we get a few hundred litres per load so our main water tank is over half full again. There has been a steady trickle of tour/whale watching boats, approximately 10-15 per day.

Ecological:

The two moulting elephant seals are still here, and they appear to be in less pain and are doing well.

The seagulls continue to get more and more aggressive, we’ve noticed that their eggs go missing. Yesterday, near the main path to the jetty there was a nest containing one egg and a territorial pair of gulls. Today, they are off the nest and the egg is missing.

Near desalination building we found a great example of what appears to be Gladiolus Imbricatus in bloom. According to a previous log post by Garry Fletcher: “Originally from south-eastern Europe/Turkey, it was introduced in the garden of an early lightkeeper and has been growing unattended here for over 50 years.”

While doing our daily seawater salinity and temperature sample, we were able to get a great picture of two sea lions on the jetty that were basking in the evening sun.

Wind, Fog, and Eggs!

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Weather: 

  • Visibility varied today. This evening visibility is excellent, 10-13 miles. This afternoon we were surrounded by fog and could not see even nearby north rock (less than 1 mile).
  • Wind this evening is blowing 30-40 knots. This morning was calmer, 12 knots.
  • Sky clear. This was interrupted mid afternoon by thick fog.
  • Water white capping and breaking into spindrift.

Boats/Visitors: 

  • Today was fairly quiet, with only a few whale watching boats in the morning which seemed to mostly keep a good distance. Greg visited this afternoon to deliver water as we are still waiting for the new desalinator. A former student visited as well.
  • The swiftsure international sailing race passed Race Rocks on Saturday, so we have been seeing the boats trickle back towards Victoria over the past couple of days.
  • Yesterday we spotted a rental boat from Pedder Bay Marina attempt to pass through the channel between our main island and the south islands.
  • Lately whale watching boats have been present viewing the elephant seals and sea lions. Many have appeared to be well within the 100m distance from sea lions required by DFO.

Whale watching boat disturbs sea lions on jetty

Whale watching boat approaches sea lions on rocks

Ecological: 

  • Two evenings past we noticed the first seagull eggs of the season. We noticed that one nest was missing its egg the next morning. The seagulls have become quite aggressive towards us but only if we get too close to their nest by accident.
  • There are still four elephant seals on the island, two moulting, the juvenile male from this past spring, and an older female.
  • The sea lions have remained on the SE side of the island, although fewer than what we were seeing before surrounding our jetty. They have been enjoying surfing the waves periodically.
  • Another oyster catcher nest spotted on the SW side.
  • We have been finding dead seagulls presumably killed by the bald eagles that have been hanging around. They especially like to sit on top of camera three.

Seagull guarding its egg and nest.

Other: 

  • Except for in the occasional presence of fog, we have been able to operate the island completely with solar on clear days.
  • We were in need of batteries so missed a few days of salinity/temperature data collection.

Elephant Seal Duo

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Weather

  • Visibility: mostly clear in the day with fog and a bit of snow in the evening
  • Wind: Light gusts throughout the day
  • Sky: Cloudy with sunny periods
  • Water: a bit rough, 1 meter swells at times

Boats/Visitors

  • had the usual ‘4 ever wild’ whale watching boat go by
  • No visitors today

Ecological

  • Still a decent amount of sea lions on and around the island.
  • The two big male elephant seals have been mostly keeping their distance from each other but today Bernard, the larger of the two, asserted a bit of dominance by moving closer inland towards Big George, the smaller of the two.

Other

  • DND blasting has taken a break for the past few weeks which has been nice.

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.