Pup-date and new photos

I have just transferred over 800 photos and over 100 videos from my camera, which have been added to the ever growing collection. A lot has happened on the island since my last post, from a 2nd west end trip with an intertidal crew partly from NOAA (with me performing crash-test dummy duty to show them how to use the zipline and harnesses), to male moves (Pete and Andre continually switch between sand flat and mirounga beach, with satellite males being chased off whilst approaching cows on the fringes of harems). Also a quick pup-date, we are up to 83 cows in attendance, although the pup birth rate has slowed (i'm sure there will be another spurt soon!), and sadly we have had 6 dead pups so far. Below are a selection of the thousands of photos I've taken so far. On Saturday I start my 2 week break from the island after 2 months of work. I'll be around San Fran for a few days, and hope to make it to Monterey befre heading to Alaska to visit my sister and her boyfriend.

 

A pup propping itself up on two cows to have a look

An American Robin crossing the path

 

Maintop (on west end) behind the elephant seal blind / hide, with a male lying underneath.

 

California sea lions on a misty west end

 

A common murre in colony

 

Pete displays to a female

 

A sooty-fox sparrow perches in one of 4 trees on the island

 

A pup, soon to be weaned as he is 26 days old.

Pete splashes around in the water

 

A wet Pete

 

One of the first blows of a fight in the water (video below)

 

A burrowing owl perched in front of one of his burrows

 

A california sea lion gets slightly wet as the tide moves in

Also here are two videos. The first is of the first proper fight we have witnessed between big males. This happened moments after I took the photos of Pete in the water shown above. Another male swam up behind him and they started fighting abruptly. After the video ends the unknown male swims off, heading towards west end, and Pete seemed relatively unharmed.

https://vimeo.com/117769051

The second is not quite the same quality, or as close to the action, but it is of several humpbacks seen from the steps of the house as I put my shoes on! 

https://vimeo.com/117770495

Varying visibility

San Francisco and the bay area are rather famous for the amount of fog that gathers. The farallones is not immune to this occurrence, although we have been fairly lucky until now. We've started to notice fog being present in the mornings, but last night it became apparent later. I brought an SLR time-lapse remote with me which I used many times in Ireland, often to record sunsets. I hadn't used it here yet, and as the sky was rather clear yesterday, with just a few wispy clouds I decided to finally set my camera up on top of the weather box (which houses an air thermometer) in front of the house. As you can see in the video below, it started off well until fog rolled in.

This morning I left the house to sit on the front steps whilst doing "seawatch" (a 5 minute survey, documenting seabirds flying across the ocean to/from their roosts and colonies). I set down the tripod, turned round to look at the sea, and realized that I couldn't as the fog was so thick the visibility was ~300m. This is quite a contrast to the last few weeks where it has averaged 30-60 miles!

Fog moving in over lighthouse hill

Apart from coping with limited viz, we have been rather busy. Fish and wildlife services were here this week with 7 contractors, which meant doing 3 boat landings in 4 days, and 2 helicopter landings with the coastguard. We have had our first major re-shuffle of large male elephant seals, with displacements and injuries.

On top of this, we have been keeping on top of our other pinniped studies, keeping track of all cow arrivals, movements and pupping (we now have 20 pups), and searching for bird species. We have had two new bird arrivals of note. Firstly the purple finch, a beautiful red bird, and a northern harrier (who has since departed).

Northern harrier

As the grey whale migration has reached its peak, we have carried out 3 all day surveys. These span 7am - 5pm, with observers taking 2 hour blocks. On our last survey we saw 56 grey whales, 4 humpbacks, and 10 unidentified dolphins. The weather has cooperated brilliantly, and has allowed me to start doing timelapses more regularly without worrying about it raining whilst I travel the island. Firstly, I took the 7-9am and 3-5pm slots at the lighthouse, which allowed me to enjoy the elevated perspective at different times, and catch a timelapse of both sunrise and sunset. The below video shows a quick timelapse of a sunrise from east landing, and then both sunrise and sunset from the lighthouse.
https://vimeo.com/116721816

Secondly, a timelapse of the elephant seal colony on sand flat. It shows the movement of cows and pups, and also if you look down the beach in the left corner of the video, you can see a cow stuck throughout the video. This is the second time it has happened when pregnant cows attempt to haul out on a steep incline where there is a slight dip below. This cow was stuck for several hours, and ended up struggling through a pool of her own blood from a cut on her flippers gained from scrambling repeatedly on rocks. She managed to get back down (at the end of the video), and then tried again and managed to get up (Check This Farallon blog post for more information on the first occurrence).
https://vimeo.com/116722692

Four weeks and three people down

Today marks our fourth week on the island (and cookies were made to celebrate). Throughout this time we have said goodbye to RJ, and today Meumeu left on his break, and Sean left, having finished sorting through californian sea lion faecal matter for a diet study. Conditions were perfect for the landing thankfully, as the logistics of launching and taking a boat out of the water with a crane with only 3 people in rough weather would not be easy.

As mentioned in the last post, we made a trip to west end, a rugged and untouched area of the island. When Ryan very casually first mentioned having to zip-line across to another part of the island for a pinniped census, we all thought he was joking, until we saw the harnesses in the drinks cupboard. Conditions were perfect for the trip, sun shining with small swells. Just as well, as the zipline goes mere metres above the water in a channel between the sections of the island.

Getting onto west end was the easy part, as it was slightly down-hill, and at low-tide. Trekking across this section of the island made "our" side seem tiny, and incredibly easy to navigate. We climbed 90% incline slopes and cliffs of granite where hand-holds came off in your hand, continually crouching to avoid scaring pinnipeds into the water. There are several thousand californian sea lions present on this side of the island as it is undisturbed by humans, and another elephant seal colony which is home to another group of females, a huge male, and unfortunately a dead pup.

Luckily the visibility was incredible, and we saw over 30 whales throughout the day.

The blow of a grey whale, showing a perfectly distinguishable heart shape which is very unusual to see around the windy farallones!

Despite the numbers of other pinnipeds, there were only ~30 fur seals present on the island during our visit, which is a low number compared to previous years at the same time.

We will go back a few more times during my stay to check on numbers of pinnipeds, and this will also give me a bit more practice zip-lining, which I apparently need. Returning on the zip-line was a lot more difficult than coming, as it was up-hill enough to need a hard push off the rocks, whilst timing your jump so that you didn't get hit by a breaking wave. This took me four attempts, coming close enough to the opposite wall to touch it, but not quite enough to grasp the slippery surface and get a foot-hold. Apart from a few cuts and bruises, swinging back and forth whilst somehow avoiding incoming swells was rather fun! I'm definitely looking forward to our next trip over, however until then we have plenty of work to do, with only three of us collecting the same amount of data that 5 were collecting up until yesterday.

The work load is increasing too, with 2 pups, 15 cows, and 7 main males to keep an eye on, alongside younger individuals, new arrivals, other pinniped species, increasing numbers of cetaceans, and sea, shore and song birds. We have had a few interesting arrivals from song birds too, with an uncommon Cassin's finch alongside more commonly seen American Robins and lesser green finches.

A chunky American Robin

Townsends warbler in flight

A burrowing owl

Lesser gold finch with cassin's finch

However, not all of the birds are thriving. Probably due to a lack of food availability, we have been noticing a die-off of cassin's auklets, regularly finding dead birds. We clip their wings (to avoid double counting, not to stop them from flying...) and document them, and sometimes it is harder to ID them than others.

An old, crispy cassins auklet which has been sat on by an elephant seal

Due to the increasing numbers of cows, and subsequently viable mates, the larger male elephant seals are becoming protective of the colony, throwing out younger males and becoming quick to bite youngsters that get too close to the females.

A cute immature, a welcome sight after sneaking among the larger guys

We haven't witnessed any big fights thus far, although have seen plenty of puncture wounds on animals and small pools of blood. Until the truly impressive fighting starts, it is quite nice to watch the younger males play-fight.

Despite how busy some days are, we always make time to gather to watch the sunset when it is clear enough, and watch the pelicans and murres flying by.

Christmas on the Farallones

Christmas day in the elephant seal colony

Christmas on a remote island is always going to be considerably different to a traditional one at home with family, and it was definitely true on the farallones. We were hit by 40 knot winds on Christmas eve, taking down our internet and phone connection. Our satellite phone also decided it wouldn't work, so our only form of communication was with the VHF marine radio, and I don't think the coastguard would be too happy if asked to pass on christmas greetings to family and friends. Everyone had moments of being upset that they couldn't talk to family and loved ones, but soon we admitted defeat and stopped constantly checking the connection status.

To pass the time we collected the minimum amount of biology data (a quick bird count, weather data, and the attendance and location of significant males and cows), played ping pong, poker, and ate a lot.

The team minus Sean, proud of our gingerbread house

 Although we were away from home, this didn't mean that presents weren't unwrapped. We had a selection of stocking fillers fit for a windy remote island (puzzle book, heating pads for shoes, chocolate) alongside point blue branded caps, hoodies and t-shirts.

Presents from Point Blue under the tree.

 Despite having glorious sunshine, 60 miles of visibility and 14c temperatures on Christmas day, we were blessed with the Farallon version of snow (foam and bubbles from breaking waves). The seals didn't seem that impressed by it though.

 As I wasn't too sure what to expect for Christmas dinner on an island in America, I tried not to get my hopes up. I shouldn't have worried though, as we concocted a tasty feast! We still have many leftover deserts which are slowly disappearing.

Overall, Christmas on the farallones was a lovely experience with great people, surroundings and food, although I am thankful that the internet seems to be reinstated (for now) so that I can catch up with loved ones and find out what is going on in the world!

We didn't have long to relax though, and eggnog and brandy stopped being consumed early as it was back to full-time data collection the next day. We had an exciting trip to the west-end of the island, which is uninhabited, untouched, rugged and unforgiving, which can only be reached by zipwire metres above breaking waves. I'll go into more detail about that in the next post, but for now here is a photo of two peregrine falcons fighting directly overhead.

Our first pup

Yesterday I was wandering the island doing a bird count, when I got a call on the radio saying that a pup had been born! I obviously went and had a look at the ugly / cute fur ball.

The cow doesn't seem experienced (she isn't tagged so we can't say for sure) as she isn't rolling over when the pup attempts to suckle her side though. She is also more concerned with gulls behind her than Andre who decided to put the pup's rear flippers in his mouth... We shall see how she does though.

 We have been having a week of rough seas, and our food shipment which was meant to arrive on Saturday was delayed until Monday, meaning that RJ left later, and Shaun was delayed coming onto the island. The landing was in the worst conditions RJ has seen over two seasons, and there were a few hairy moments, but we got all of our supplies and personnel transferred with only an island radio lost in the process. I didn't take any photos of the landing as I was too busy holding bow lines to stop the zodiac pitching into the gulch as swells hit it, but follows some photos of a selection of island occurrences.

Brown Pelican with a wave breaking close behind

A variety of age class males piled on top of each other

Andre staring at me

An oiled common murre found on the island. I watched as he preened himself on a rock, got blown off by the wind, struggled and failed to fly, and was washed up into a gulch with elephant seals snapping at him. He managed to hop up above them unharmed.

To celebrate our first pup of the season, we headed down to watch a rare sunset from the colony, and as we clinked our beer bottles together, a grey whale spouted off-shore. It was perfectly timed.

The majority of the elephant seals are constantly dribbling snot, probably from infections after being at sea.

Finally captured a few photos of the banded burrowing owl. He usually gets flushed from his burrow as we walk past and quickly disappears, but this time he stayed around in the open.

I debated whether to post the following few images as they are gory, but I thought I should include all aspects of science. A young californian sea lion died yesterday morning in our elephant seal colony, and so we carried her higher up the beach and Ryan performed a field necropsy. Although there wasn't anything that interesting about this individual, he went into great detail as we are to help on future operations. Warning, blood and guts are literally in the following images (after the one of pelicans with the moon in the background, silhouetted by a sunset).

Pre-necropsy

Fully opened up

Intestines and stomach laid out to check their contents (there wasn't much in the stomach, but a bit of faecal matter towards the bottom of the system).

 We aren't sure of the cause of death, probably some form of illness that led to it not eating. Cancer is common in this species, but as such a young individual and the lack of physical evidence suggests that wasn't it. When you live on an island with so many animals, you become used to death and stepping over dead birds (after clipping their wings to show that they have already been counted), but there is so much life here a few deaths are unavoidable. The common murre colony for example is in full force. They will come and go, and it is clear that they are here when you walk out of the house in the morning to see a "murre-nado" circling.

Common murre colony, taken from the top of lighthouse hill.

 As we are experiencing very low (negative) tides at the moment, we managed to explore 'jewel cave', which is usually flooded with water. It was very slippery on matts of algae, although i'm becoming better at climbing rock faces from daily activities around the island, so the added challenge was overcome without incident. The cave was small, but full of colour.