Sounds travel from Race Rocks to Rocky Point, so all RPBO staff and volunteers are familiar with the barking of the sea lions and the incessent beep of the fog signal when visibility is limited. At sunrise today, there was no fog at the island, but off to the west and south, it looked ominous. The beeps are loud enough to require hearing protection if you are working outside, so I took my binoculars, camera, scope AND hearing protectors with me when I headed to the solar panels. It looked like there might be some action on the water, but blowing in from the west was dense fog. By the time I was finished cleaning the panels, we were deep in it and the fog signal was going full bore.
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| Fog bank headed my way |
But just before 11 am, it stopped. I looked outside, and we were right in the thick of a fog bank. It shouldn't have stopped. I waited a minute, then started a timer. I pulled out the Standard Operating Procedures to see what to do if the foghorn stopped. Nothing there. I guess this situation isnt' standard. I called Greg and he said to call the Coast Guard Office and let them know. It's federal property and isn't managed by Pearson College. Of course, the number I found didn't work, so I used the radio and got the message where it needed to go. While I sat here in silence (okay, not total silence--the gulls and sea lions were still at it), I tried to think about who else needed to know. I made a radio call on the channel monitored by the whale watchers, and phoned Pedder Bay and Cheanuh marinas so that they could advise boaters that the signal was not operating and just hoped for the best. I suppose it didn't help that I'd recently read about all of the ships that sank around Race Rocks.
The Coast Guard got back to me to let me know that they had put out a Navigation Warning and they were trying to coordinate an electrician and and transport and they'd be back in touch. And then at 12:55, the signal started again, just as the fog was getting lighter. Then an hour later, when it became thicker, it stopped again. And so it went the rest of the day. It is probably a case of a low battery that gets just enough charge when the fog lightened to sound, but couldn't get enough when it got too foggy. The Coast Guard should be here in the morning. Let's hope for a clear day!
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| Navigation Warning! |
There was definitely no birding to be done today. I didn't even see a cowbird! However, when I went to do the water sampling, there was a Common Murre perched on the rocks next to the jetty. It didn't even move as I went by it a few times. That usually means that there is something wrong with it. But later in the day, I was talking to Daniel Donnecke and he and the other boaters saw one doing the same thing on the south rocks on Sunday. It was gone later when I checked.
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| Common Murre |
The fog cleared a little around dinner, so I took a trip up the tower to do an unofficial before census count of sea lions. I counted 456. Last week on census there were 244. No wonder it smells so much worse around here! Fun fact: California sea lions hold their little tails out of the water when they swim near the surface!
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| Had to make this fence right before they made their way over it! |
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| They swim with their tails up! |
There are so many sea lions here now that the shorebirds have had to move into the hills. Their normal beach is being overwhelmed.
The baby gulls are mostly flying a little now, so they are showing up on the outlying rocks. Yesterday, I watched one play with seaweed in the wind, dropping it than flying back to where the wind had taken it, then picking it up and starting all over again. Today, this one had a stick it was playing with.
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| Glaucous-winged (wood-billed) Gull |
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