Bit o' Rough and Tumble

Love is in the air…Well, for the elephant seals at least.

It’s reached that time when Alpha male Rusty and all the other surrounding males start to get their groove on and make moves on the ladies. The ladies don’t have much of a say in the matter and I’d hardly call it romantic, but they get the job done and this time next year the cows will be back again with yet more pups.

So in my other blog posts perhaps I painted a pretty picture of elephant seal life. The pups were very cute and the mothers doted on their every need. Males rumbled to fend off rivals and there were hummingbirds and rainbows and pretty things. Well since then things have become pretty gnarly.

Herzog



Rusty the alpha male

MC Hammer

Testosterone entered the camp and the males started to get a little too full of themselves, throwing their weight around (of which there is a considerable amount … up to 2000kg!) and showing off to the ladies.








Cows started bickering, fighting with their handbags, biting each other’s pups and gulls descended from the sky to come and feast upon the open wounds festering on the poor baby seals.
 A pleasant picture I am creating for you I am sure. Welcome to the Farallones.

So about a week ago we witnessed our first ‘proper’ fight between bull male elephant seals. We had just come to the end of our morning survey and Jason and I headed back to the house to collect the weather data. Ryan and Jane decided to stay a while longer at Sand Flat to look out for some more cows to identify. As they were searching all hell suddenly broke loose and Herzog and MC Hammer started to fight. Jane then radioed us to let us know and so we flew to Sand Flat as fast as we could caper to see what was going on.

As we reached the commotion we witnessed MC Hammer and Herzog sizing each other up as shown in the photo. Each one would then take his opportunity to bite into the other throwing his whole body into the manoeuvre.

It was pretty intense stuff. Then just as it looked as though Herzog was getting the upper hand and was potentially going to beat MC Hammer the pup-crushing,-weaner-mauling brute of a male (when we talk of ‘weaners’ we are referring to the pups that have weaned… Just in case there is some confusion!) the old dog Rusty (alpha male of sand flat for over four years!) shows up and the two fighting males start to tremble in their oversized boots.
Rusty hurtles after them… Well hurtles as much as an elephant seal can hurtle... This generally means one short burst of movement followed by a couple of minutes of recuperation, getting ones breath back, then another short burst of movement followed by yet more slumping and recovering. Herzog narrowly misses having his guts for garters and sneaks away relatively unscathed.  MC Hammer however is a little too slow on the uptake (he does have a blind left eye.. we’ll let him off) and gets a right royal bashing from Rusty. The two of them continue this way, with MC Hammer running for the water while Rusty is close on his tail giving him the occasional bite in the rear. They then get to the water and the fight continues until we can see them no more.

All this over a few females

Meanwhile, we celebrated our valentines day island style. Through the medium of food.

Chocolate truffles and carrot cake for breakfast lunch and dinner anyone?

Carrot cake lovingly made by Jane

Five and half hours of scrubbing gull poo off the catchment pad in the rain... The things we'll do for drinking water

I am scrubbing in the middle of a rather muddy puddle,

with my bottoms full of bubbles and my wellies full of mud.

While my jacket and my sweater go on slowly getting wetter

and I very slowly settle to the bottom of the mud.

Now I find that what a person, with a puddle round his middle

thinks of mostly in the muddle is the muddyness of mud.

I saw 10,000 gulls on Christmas day, on Christmas day in the morning

My baggy men’s trousers are getting tight. Christmas food was just far too abundant and delicious, although saying that, all the food we eat is delicious and in abundance. Hence why my trousers are snug.

The festive period on Southeast Farallon Island was simply wonderful. Christmas away from loved ones had potential to be a sad and lonely affair, especially spending it on a rock in the North Pacific Ocean with only three other people. But it was far from sad or lonely and as Ryan put it “if you can’t be with those you love, love the ones you are with.”

I awoke on Christmas morning to the sound of squawking gulls at the glorious time of 6.30am. I had taken Jane’s place at doing the gull count as I love nothing more than counting the gulls early in the morning. Being out in the fresh air as the sun rises as I sing to the gulls many a morning/Christmas themed song. I’m sure the gulls appreciate my singing; I know my house mates do.

 After I had counted a few thousand gulls I returned to the house where I discovered, much to my delight that Father Christmas had been in the night and delivered presents for all us good little girls and boys!

So open our presents we did and I received such nice gifts from my Farallon family. Jason was very generous and gave us each a penknife and torch, Jane gave to me some super cute socks with seals on them along with some Russian candy and Ryan spoilt us with a PRBO hoodie, hat and tote bag… Oh and a plastic squeaky shark toy from off the shelf, that I’m not actually allowed to keep.

I also opened a wondeful parcel from home which contained
many a gift wrapped item, before chatting to the family on
skype which was lovely.

We carried out the elephant seal census around the island and then continued to spend the majority of the day gorging ourselves on food.

Full English breakfast...

 mid-afternoon cheese platter...

... Then stuffing in a roasted pumpkin, roast spuds, pigs in blankets, a mahoosive ham …. A minute slither of Christmas pud each with lashings of custard and ‘chocolate air’ created lovingly by Jane. Oh and I almost forgot about the vat of mulled wine.

New Year’s Eve was also great. No deliberation over what pub or whose house to go to, no overpriced drinks and crowded bars. No dilemma over what to wear, how to style your hair, no ‘does my bum look big in this?’ Here on the island Farallon fashion takes over. So we celebrated simply.

Jane cooked a Russian feast which was delicious that included pirojki which are cabbage stuffed bread rolls, blini which are pancake type wraps containing mushroom delights, a beet salad, aubergine caviar, ham salad and apple stuffed bread rolls for afters.

We then whiled away a few hours with wholesome intellectual board games, buckets full of laughter (leave the door open) and a spot of bad guitar playing on my part before heading up to the lighthouse to see in the New Year.

At the stroke of midnight we had already consumed half our bottle of champers whilst wearing our New Milton Advertiser party hats and were watching the fireworks display over San Francisco. They just looked like minuscule puffs on the horizon 28 miles away from where we stood.

 I believe our own private display was far more impressive. Each time the lighthouse flashed it illuminated gulls flying above us and the moon was low in the sky glowing eerie auburn.

So enough about food, fun and festivities, back to seals and other such wildlife

West End- A rugged peak of an island.

(Photos to come. I didn't take my camera with me so I will try to steal some from Jason ad Ryan!)

The view of West End Island from the lighthouse

The morning started off so foggy that my gull count was cancelled and so I found myself baking mince pies at 7am. As the fog began to lift, Jason, Ryan and myself set off on an adventure to West End Island whilst Jane kindly stayed behind to talk to the seals and be there just in case we got lost or squashed or eaten by the big pinnipeds.

We began by stealth walking our way past Californian sea lions, scurrying over wet wave pummelled algae covered rocks to reach Jordon’s channel.  At the channel we donned our climbing harnesses and helmets, clipped into the metal zip wire and kicked off the rock with as much gusto as we could muster to reach the other side.

I got half way and tried pulling myself along using the rope, but alas I was getting nowhere! I had a wee panic that perhaps I had eaten so much Christmas food that I was now incapable of heaving my own body weight up a rope! But then I heard Ryan shout to me and it appeared that a rope had got caught up somewhere and so I could not get any further!

Greeting us on the island was a cascade of beautiful purple and white gull guano covering an entire rock face, a dead gull and a dead Zalophus. Welcome to West End they said.

The day was then full of much scampering over rocky cliffs, much thigh burning stealth walking trying to hide from zalophus (though at times hard when you have Jason ‘too tall’ Jones in the troop!) and much much counting of seals. The reason for going to west end is to carry out a census of the seals there to gain a better understanding of how many actually inhabit the island. The majority of seals there are the Californian sea lions (zalophus) but we also came across some northern fur seals (callorhinus), steller sea lions (eumetopias) and of course our lovely elephant seals (mirounga).

For creatures that look so unsuited to a life on land it’s amazing how high some of these animals can climb. Upon summiting one of the peaks on our census we came face to face with a sub-adult male northern fur seal! It was incredible to see it so close up. Its pelage was black with grey flecks and its whiskers were like an outrageous moustache giving it the appearance of an aging man. It strutted away and we continued with our mission.

The fog was still shrouding the island, though occasionally it would lift giving us a small glimpse of what lay beyond. It really was a magical place and the fog added to this. West end is a wilderness area and so we seldom visit it. Before stepping foot on the island we scrub our shoes so as not to bring over any invasive plant species or such so that we can keep the island in its natural form, the way it is supposed to be. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience such a wild and beautiful place that is teeming with such incredible wildlife.

MC Hammer... A brute of a male. Now seemingly blind in one eye

This is the male Rumplestiltskin who frequents Sewer Gulch. Seems he got into a bit of a scrap with another male and came away with a asty wound

A couple of immature elephants seals

The fog clearing

Sand flat with seven cows and five pups ... Today we had nineteen cows and thirteen pups!

Since my last blog post we have had many new arrivals to the island, in the form of elephant seal pups! This has been very exciting although at times a trifle perplexing. Just when you think you have worked out who is whom and whose pup belongs to whom, a new day arrives and along with it a few new cows and perhaps a pup or two!

Due to the abundance of zalpohus around the elephant seal breeding grounds it has been difficult for us to stamp the females for ID purposes, this means that we end up spending HOURS in the e-seal blind (hide) painstakingly trying to read flipper tags through a scope or look for identifying features such as our unfortunate cow who has three nostrils (it seems she had a cist on her nose that became a hole… Now when she sneezes snot comes out of three nostrils) and scars that look like numerous teats. It’s ok. Rusty (Alpha male of sand flat) won’t care what she looks like and as Ryan put it “beauty is but a light switch away”

So much more to report but alas, I fear if I trail on anymore I shall lose my audience. But just before I go...

The common Murres (Guillemots) have begun arriving in their hundreds. So until next time, I shall leave you with these pictures

The Christmas Supply Boat

Where has time gone? I cannot believe we have already been here over two weeks.
Today we had our first supply boat come visit along with a pile of maintenance people carrying out work on the crane and fixing our hot water etc. (Hot water is now running in our house now, it’s amazing).

This was a very exciting supply trip as the boat contained all our Christmas goodies. Parcels, cards, lots of Christmas food, and my camera lens that my lovely mother sent over for me, so now I will finally be able to get some close-up shots of all the fantastic wildlife!

Unfortunately I found out today that two parcels for me only arrived at the PRBO office today, so I’ll have to wait two whole weeks before I get to open them. But thank you to whoever they are from (AC and UJ?!)

Today has been roasting day, as hot as a good English summers day (not that I can remember what those are like). I was told the Farallones would be cold, damp, rainy and windy, however for the past two weeks that we have been on this island, there has been barely anything but sunshine.

This has been a great week. Firstly I managed to tag my first seal. After stealth crawling over the seal and gull poo covered rocks trying to not attract the attention of the Californian sea lions, I managed to sneak up on an unsuspecting dozing immature elephant seal and successfully tag its
hind flipper. This means that we can now keep track of this individual and see where it turns up each year.

Wednesday was an odd but wonderful morning. I was at the top of the hill for the morning gull count and at the time of the sun rising here it was also my Grandma's funeral back home. I couldn’t think of a better send of for Gran than the amazing sunrise I witnessed that morning over a mill-pond-calm ocean. The sight of a grey whale and the sounds of birds and seals lighting up the day.

You can just about make out the grey whale in this photo.

Did you ever see so many gulls?

This week we were able to conduct our first bi-monthly endemic arboreal salamander survey. I thought cetaceans and pinnipeds were where it’s at, but salamanders…. Now they are something else! I can’t believe I am 25 and have only just paid attention to these wee little slimy critters.

The survey involved traipsing around the island finding the numbered salamander boards. When we found these boards we had to lift them straight up so as not to squish and little sallys and move the board away and check the patch of dirt underneath. As we have not had any rain in quite some time, a lot of the dirt under the boards was very dry, not ideal sally habitat.

Once we had found dirt that was moister, the salamanders started to appear! Once I had caught the wriggly little fellow I had to let it climb into a clear tube so that I could measure its torso and tail length, then check for all of its toes (in previous seasons they may have clipped their toes to identify individuals), check the sex of the animal which is determined by looking for either eggs in a female or the mental gland in a male, which is a distinct mark or raised area under its chin.

Once this is done it is time for its photo shoot. I have done photo identification for bottlenose and rissos dolphins, sperm, minke and humpback whales, grey seals… But never before salamander photo id! That’s right, the salamander spot pattern is also like a fingerprint and so we can identify individuals by their spots. The mander is then weighed before being set free to nestle back under its board.

On a less pleasant note... We also had a bit of gruesome gore this week. A poor immature Californian sea lion was seen at sea pigeon gulchwith a rectal prolapse. It was not pretty. He stayed there for a couple of days perched on top of a rock barely moving, but we have not seen him since.

An adult female Californian sea lion was also washed up dead at sewage gulch this week. Ryan then proceeded to carry out a necropsy donned in a fetching luminous yellow onesie. By the time we started it was already approaching sunset and by the time we had finished it was totally dark. Ryan collected samples of various organs to be sent to the lab in order to try and determine the cause of death. It was fascinating to see the inner workings of a sea lions body and I was amazed at their flippers. The grip is just incredible.

This week also saw much fun and hilarity in the name of board games! Many a laugh was had. The food has also been great; it seems that as time goes on the food just gets better. Jane cooked an incredible veggie tart and chicken yum yum soup, Jason created a super spicy soup and bread with the most tasty and moreish dipping sauce and Ryan concocted a sumptuous squash and greens filled mac and cheese. There is no doubt in my mind that I will NOT be losing weight this season.

I also stamped a cow with hair dye today on sand flat. The sea lions have at last begun to retreat from the elephant seals domain which means we can get a little closer. Team work was great. Ryan and myself stealthed it down the rocky verge and I was first to stamp the cow, then just as we had planned, the cow rolled and so Ryan got her other side. After this he was then able to stamp Rusty the bull male of Sand flat. Bam bam bam. Done and dusted. Bob’s your uncle.

Seals and scones. Now that's more like it

If things couldn’t get much better, guess what I saw this evening as the sun set?! The illusive green flash! Yes. It really does exist.

Well I am wishing you all a very merry Christmas and thank you so much for the cards and presents, though I haven’t opened any yet so don’t give away any surprises!