Weather Today: 

• Visibility 1-5 NM
• Sky overcast, moderate fog cover
• Wind 10-25 knots W
• Waves up to 0.5m

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!

Census:

412 California Gulls

68 Glaucus Gulls

9 Stellar Sea Lions

76 California Sea Lions

65 Cormorants

14 Black Oyster Catchers

10 Harbour Seals

7 Canada Geese

15 Black Turnstones