Bull

I've seen Elephant Seal bulls before, but I really did not remember how big they actually were. This is one of the first we have seen for the fall and it's not even that large for an adult male, but it just puts all of the immatures we've been seeing the whole season to shame. They look tiny now.


My shadow for scale (kinda)

Elephant Seal flipper

Proofing

Sorry for the lack of entertaining pictures! It's been pretty windy, leaving us with few birds, and the inability to actually see shark attacks or whales, so data proofing it was for today! The Cassin's Auklets were back again last night and when I got up to do the 6am weather I was in serious danger of getting nailed by one flying into me.

Thanks for the food, sorry for the rain

We got some of our food resupplies off of the boat today, but due to some serious rains and big swell we were only able to get one load off of the boat that came out here. As a result the guys on the boat did not get a chance to tour the island! It was a bummer for all. BUT, we got a turkey.

Completely unrelated, here are some fatties

And this weirdo


And this wave!

Horned and Clark's Grebe Today

E-seal POWER


Fox


White-winged Scoter

HOLA

Horned Lark


E-seal in some dirty looking foam

Re-up

Today Amanda and Melissa were kind enough to bring us food from the mainland! Every two weeks volunteers do a big grocery shop and hop onto a boat (which has also been volunteered to take the trip out) to bring it to us in order to resupply our fridges and pantry. They made it out here early afternoon, got a quick tour of the island and were getting back onto the sailboat again within an hour and a half. It's a brutally long day for anyone who does that (they shopped all evening last night, woke up at 5am, and will probably get home by midnight) and they also had some horrible weather on the way back, making it extra rough, so THANK YOU for doing it! Glad they got to see the island for what it is, but also where I'm working and living.

I somehow did not take any pictures while Amanda was here, but maybe she will supply some on her blog?

This sea lion was not happy about the e-seal. The e-seal could have cared less.




Black Turnstone


Black Oystercatcher, should still be the logo, I think






Big swell yesterday, made us wonder if the food and friends were going to make it onto the island today


Same Brown Creeper. I found him trying to cling to the house, he finally found the roof, then finally found the tree.

Creepin'

So far today: three shark attacks, 50+ Risso's Dolphins, a short-eared owl, a second Eastern Phoebe...

...a Clay-colored Sparrow:


...and the fall's first Brown Creeper.


And a fat e-seal


And the Wandering Tattler

West End

Yesterday Jim and I headed over to the West End island which is normally off limits as it is where the pinnipeds hang out and we don't want to disturb them for the most part. However, every two weeks or so Jim goes there to get a count on the different species. Everyday we get to see the Elephant Seals and California Sea Lions, but rarely do we have Northern Fur Seal sightings, so a trip over to West End is a pleasure, as you get to see the colony, which was at around 300 yesterday.

The first step to getting to West End is crossing a channel. We harness in and zip across between waves:


The second part of getting to areas where we can actually get counts on them is walking extremely slowly, and hopefully out of sight so as to not flush large groups (which can be dangerous for them and is quite a disturbance).

Here are a couple of pictures of the large masses of pinnipeds I saw. The four species (California and Steller's Sea Lion, Elephant and Northern Fur Seal) do some inter mixing but stick together for the most part.




This is looking out from the highest point on the West End down over much of where they hang out


Mostly Cali Sea Lions


Fur Seals


There are not many Stellar's Sea Lions, but here is a female with her pup


Elephant Seals


The best part of the trip is getting to see all of the pups! The Fur Seals were obviously the cutest:








Cali Seal Lion pup is also cool


The views back the the main island were also outstanding

Cold Count

Today was fairly uneventful. We banded 3 birds: Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and Black-throated Gray. I learned to survey the shorebirds, I counted a bunch of gulls, and used the crane for the first time.

The Stare Down

Today I had my first full day on the Southeast Farallon Islands. I had an epic area search with Jim, saw the aftermath of a shark attack, but no shark, lots of elephant seals, lots of California Sea Lions, Peregrine fights, and MICE.

Elephant seal.


Burrowing owl. We banded two tonight, this one stared us down as we collected his pellets.