This just in

An 80-foot boat sank off Cape Alava in Olympic National Park in the state of Washington last Thursday. That's not far from here, so the people who organize BC Beached Bird Surveys, Bird Studies Canada, have called for volunteers to scour the coasts around Victoria and area for signs of oil or animals in distress due to oiling.

I've been a volunteer beached bird surveyor since last January and have only seen one dead bird in that time. Thankfully. The purpose of the program is to gather baseline data on the incidental oil already washing up on our coast and the impact it has on wildlife. This with the hopes of keeping the moratorium on oil tankers tripping through Georgia Strait, the body of water between Vancouver Island an the mainland.

The vessel in question sank with over 14,000 litres (or 3,800 US gallons) of fuel onboard. I can't picture how much that is, but I do know that one litre of oil can contaminate two million litres of water. Thank you Transportation Tune-Up.

I also know what a beach littered with dead birds looks like.

I came across this die-off of common murres at Pachena Bay near Bamfield, B.C. in 2008. It's what got me started in the Beached Bird Survey.

I hope not to see anything like it when I head out to do the emergency survey this week.

This is not a great photo but I can't resist introducing these cool little seabirds.
Rhinoceros auklets. I caught these two on the May trip to the San Juan Islands.

You may just be able to make out the horn that grows on the upper base of the beak. Thus the name. This horn is used to dig burrows where they stash their young while out at sea feeding.

The auklet is not an auk at all, it's really a puffin. It's unusual in being mostly nocturnal. In the day rhinos are on the water. At night they take care of business back at the colony where they compete for burrow sites, dig, lay eggs or feed their young.

Females lay a single egg and both parents put all of their energy into ensuring the survival of that one chick. That involves taking turns on the egg for about 45 days then provisioning it with a steady stream of Pacific sandlance for another 55 days or so. Herring or young rockfish will also do in a pinch.

More than 80,000 rhinoceros auklets, along with many other seabirds, breed on the Scott Islands off the north western tip of Vancouver Island. This is 12 per cent of the national population and 7 per cent of the global population. The breeding colony on Triangle Island (one of the Scott Islands) alone consists of over 40,000 breeding pairs.

The entire Scott Islands group is protected as a provincial park and a federal Marine Wildlife Area. The three outermost islands – Triangle, Sartine and Beresford – are ecological reserves and a permit must be obtained from B.C. Parks in order to visit them.

Sailing the San Juans

On my May long weekend travels I covered ground that felt at once familiar and like charting new territory.

I met my friends, who have a great boat in Point Roberts, Wash. From there we set sail for the north eastern part of the San Juan Islands, specifically Matia Island.

On the way out we saw Dall's porpoises, the weather was ideal and we lucked into being the only boat to anchor in Matia Cove for two days.

Once we got on land and hiked around, I started recognizing the landscape and realized I'd been in the area on whale watching trips. We used to sail out of Victoria and approach the San Juans from the other side.

That kept me on the look out for resident orcas, but we didn't spot any. Saw some other familiar forms, though.

Like the pigeon guillemot.



This seabird belongs to the family that includes puffins and auks. They would be around the cove in the morning, sitting on the water or flying up to the sandstone cliffs where they must be nesting. Probably eggs at this stage.





They eat fish which they pursue by flying under the water, diving to depths up to 45 m but typically between 10 and 20 m.

They can also hover underwater and use their bills to pry mollusks and crustaceans off rocks.


I haven't read much about those fantastic red feet but such decorations usually signal how incredibly fit they are to potential mates.





As in, I'm so great I can survive even with these beacons to guide predators to me. Or, I'm such a super forager, I can get enough nutrients to keep my feet ultra red. It works, populations of this Pacific Northwest species are going strong.




They are known for doing a courting dance on the water which may be what they are doing in the photo below.



They are faithful to their mates and nest sites, so if I returned year after year I'd meet the same birds. They are known to live more than 20 years in the wild.