I am learning more about the musicality of this house during storms. During my first storm here, the house whistled. Last night a weather alert was posted at 7:00 and by 7:15 the wind rose, going from 12 knots to over 50 knots in 45 minutes. The west-west-southwest direction was just right to set off a vibration, every time it went over 45 knots. When it went over 50, the desk would hum along with the deeper vibration of the house. Today was a beautiful day with a few northeast showers in the morning and a switch to clear westerlies for the afternoon. All day, the barometer climbed out of its low of 987 hPa. The next thing forecast to hit us, is the tail end of Hurricane Ana, so I will be watching the barometer and wind speed again and listening for a new musical experience.

The whale watchers are still plying their trade and five tour boats were observed in the Ecological Reserve today.

There were Humpback Whales just off of Rosedale Reef all day and more further to the south getting close to the shipping lane.

There are now 14 Northern Elephant Seals on the ramp and next to the boat shed.

Northern Elephant Seals keeping each other warm on the ramp.

‘Flake’ was joined at the side of the boathouse by two other little ones the same size and one a tiny bit bigger that is tagged, #7625.

Today was the first time I spotted this tag and I have been looking very carefully.

Number 7625 on the right and ‘Flake’ on the left, a little warmer today with the pile up.

‘Gat’ (#5850-6967) has lost his right flipper tag, which reinforces the point Lisa Schwarz is making about assumptions about mortality that are based on tag loss. So ‘Gat’ is reduced to #5850 now.

Last week this animal, called ‘Gat’ had two tags, a left set and a right set. It has lost the right tag(s).

I think this is where the #6967 tag was attached before.

I did a Steller’s Sealion count today because they have shifted around and I was curious if their numbers had changed. There were a total of 340 hauled out in the afternoon, which is close to Thursday’s count of 318. The difference is that 194 of them were jammed onto Middle Rock, with waves sweeping the edges of the crowd.

I finished collecting rainwater for doing laundry at the end of my shift, coming up this week and started ticking off the things that have been on the to do list for too long. I took some photographs, deleted almost as many and spent a good chunk of the day sorting data and images. Doing the seawater sample was a little less daunting today with simple splashes versus sweeping waves on the jetty.