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The Daily Bucket - midAugust on the sea, with a Friendly Seal/pup sighting [1]
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Date: 2023-08-28
August 16, 2023
Salish Sea, Pacific Northwest
Right at the entrance to the sheltered bay where we keep our boat there’s a rock where wildlife often rests or forages. By great good chance the last time we went out in the boat we caught a sighting of Friendly Seal and her pup. Even before we got out onto the sea!
The following is a photodiary of some sights from our excursion that day. All these pics are from August 16.
FS and pup were parked on a flat section the medium tide leaves exposed. Note how skinny FS has become
Two other seals were cruising toward these rocks as we went by
Out on the sea, not a lot of alcids around, most still off nesting. The few we saw were in stages of transition from breeding to winter plumage.
Breeding plumaged Rhinoceros Auklet
Non breeding plumaged Rhino Auklet
Pigeon Guillemots: winter plumage on left, breeding plumage on right. Different birds transition at different times.
Out at Whale Rocks the tide was coming in fast. We kept our distance from the rocks to avoid grounding, since our engine is not very powerful.
A whale-watch boat got in closer. No whales here, but this is a common stop for commercial boats on their way around to the far side of San Juan island to where orcas are more likely seen. There are always sea lions to see at Whale Rocks.
My zoom lens got looks at the sea lions, Heermann’s gulls, and hundreds of Brandt’s cormorants newly arrived from nesting out on the open coast.
The flood tide at the rocks was pushing our boat northward (leftward on the chart) off our usual marked route. Once we got out of the main channel that tidal current lessened.(yellow=the Rocks, green=kelp bed, blue= shallow water)
There wasn’t much wind but a few sailboats had sails up. A lot of boats out and about at this time of year.
A baitball attracted several kinds of gulls: Glaucouswinged, California, Heermann’s. You can see the size difference: amongst those three larger to smaller
A GW gull heads off with a mouthful of sandlance, headed toward….
its youngster(s) on a nearby island. While the other gull species have fledged, the GWGUs haven’t yet. All those grey birds are baby GWGUs. But they’re close, that’s grey feathers not down
Heading back into the bay we were happy to see Friendly Seal and pup were still lounging on the same rock. The tide had come up a foot or so though.
FS and pup on left. Two other seals are on the rock to their right.
I couldn’t tell if the other seals were a mom and pup. Foreshortening and perspective make it hard to judge at this distance.
They are nice and dry for the moment but the tide was still coming in. They’d be off soon, back into the sea.
That may be my last sighting of FS and her pup together. The six-week weaning period is most likely over, and FS has to regain her normal body weight (she loses half her weight, between nursing and not fishing much). The pup will face a challenging year as it learns to hunt for itself, independent of mom. Often weanlings congregate together during this time. All the best to this young flipperling.
🦦
Marine air arriving at the coast this morning.
Onshore flow arrived overnight, overcast this morning. Still somewhat hazy also with wildfire smoke we’ve had over us the past few days. It’s cooled off into the 60s as a system moves in, which should blow away some of this ongoing smoke and possibly even drop some precip. Satellite map image shows rain (green) in spots along the outer coast of Washington and British Columbia. Brownish wildfire smoke visible east of the Cascades still. NWS is calling for “wetting rain” tomorrow locally so Mr O will take an umbrella to his rescheduled eye doc appt over in Friday Harbor tomorrow.
What’s up in nature in your neighborhood?
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