Ann's Adventures: Tide's out, Wind's in

Spectacular sunrise this morning!

Brrr....It was blowing like crazy first thing this morning but the sunrise was spectacular! 30+knots at times, prompting me to delay getting up on the roof to wash the solar panels, but that was okay, as it was census day! Once a week, the ecoguardian summarizes the state of the marine mammals and birds within the reserve. By rising before most sensible animals, I was able to get a good count of the seals and sea lions and make a start on the birds. Unlike the mammals, different times of day seem to better than others for different species. For instance, the California Gull numbers are generally highest early in the morning, but the Black Turnstone numbers are highest in late afternoon. And Killdeer don't show up here until it gets dark!

Exposed eel grass surrounding Race Rocks

Counting Harbour Seals is easy compared to counting birds!

By the end of the day, this was my tally:

Mammals

Elephant seals: 3 (1 adult male, two juvenile females)
Steller sea lions: 124
California sea lions: 40
Harbour seals: 186
Sea Otter 1

Birds

Canada geese: 4
Harlequin ducks: 8
Black oystercatchers: 9 (8 adults 1 chick )
Killdeer 2 (only on island between dusk and dawn)
Black Turnstones: 194
Surfbirds: 17
Common Murres: 79
Pigeon Guillemots:183
Rhinoceros Auklets: 2
Heermann's Gulls: 2
California Gulls: 353
Glaucous-winged Gulls: 341 adults 169 chicks (probably undercounted as wind caused a lot of chicks to seek cover)
Caspian Terns: 2
Pelagic Cormorants: 5
Brandt's Cormorants: 12
Brown Pelican: 1

I was pretty happy with that even though some expected species were missed. I finally got a picture of a pelican! Jinx broken! Late in the day, two Caspian Terns passed over the island.

Brown Pelican

Caspian Tern

Heermann's Gull

I think one of these specks is a Cassin's Auklet. Still waiting for a better look.

Harlequin Ducks, presumably all females. Males in this plumage should look very fresh and sport a red eye.

Pigeon Guillemots

There was also a very low tide early this morning. Before birds, I was quite active in the tropical fish hobby. Before that, my passion was the intertidal zone. I loved getting a glimpse of the zone today, and hope to get an even closer look tomorrow. Bear with me while I show you some non-bird photos:

Purple mussels, goose-necked barnacles and sea anemone. One of these species can move around. The others can not.

Leatherback chitons

Bull Kelp making art

A variety of seaweeds (or are they just "weeds"-birder joke!)

The leather "straws" are the homes of feather duster tube worms

The mussel beds were largely unaffected by the 2021 heat dome.

The gulls were not kind to me today. First, during census, one of the gulls that obviously has young near the helipad clipped me in the head several times. I should have worn my helmet! When I got to the solar panels around 9 am, they were a mess. I spent quite a while cleaning them, only to have at least 6 already dirty again just when I thought I was finished. Later in the day, though, their attention turned to the schools of bait fish that were not too far away. There must have been a lot, as there were hundreds of gulls on the bait ball, and dozens returning to Race Rocks. On the first trip back, the chicks were very anxious to have their parents dump the load they had gathered. However, after a few trips, the chicks didn't even care anymore.

Greg was leading more alumni tours around the reserve until a few lightning bolts put an end to the plans for the day. After the tours, he was going to bring water to top up the tanks. That will wait until Friday now. While the all metal Second Nature headed back to Pearson College, two kayakers were frolicking in the rip of Race Passage.