Category Archives: Photos

Wolf Eel : Anarrhichthys ocellatus on Taylor beach

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On February 9, 2023  Deidre Chettleburgh and her grandson Ben retrieved this 37 cm wolf eel from the strand line on Taylor beach.  

Although the experts on iNaturalist identified it as a wolf eel, (https://inaturalist.ca/observations/148414762 ) this description of a juvenile wolf eel from Wikipedia doesn’t really fit . ???

“Younger wolf eels are orange with big dark spots in the posterior part of the body. Once older they turn grey, brown greyish or dark olive.”[7][8]
This individual was very dark black. Also in  my many years of Diving around Race Rocks Ecological Reserve I never saw anything like it.
https://racerocks.ca/anarrhichthys-ocellatus-wolf-eel-the-race-rocks-taxonomy-2/

Classification from Wikkipedia:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Scorpaeniformes
Family: Anarhichadidae
Genus: Anarrhichthys
Ayres, 1855
Species:
A. ocellatus
Binomial name
Anarrhichthys ocellatus

Ayres, 1855

Euphasids,( Northern Krill) in the Strand Line on Taylor beach

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Today  an event that I had never seen before occurred on Taylor Beach.  Millions of tiny Euphasids or Krill ended up on a 600 metre section of the beach North of Taylor Road . Many of the krill were still alive , but the majority were dead and they were accumulating as the tide came in. I have no idea what the cause of this is, but it was reported to have happened to the north on Witty’s Beach as well today.

 

Northern krill (Meganyctiphanes norvegica)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Superorder: Eucarida
Order: Euphausiacea
Dana, 1852

 

Purple Martins nesting at Pearson College Docks in Pedder Bay

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John Costello and James Kennerley-Aug 2013.

Four new purple martin boxes were installed on the pilings of the Pearspn College docks in Pedder Bay on August 6, 2013. The team was Fred Beinhauer, John Costello, the late Tom Gillespie, and James Kennerley , a student from Pearson College.

This is now the second year that they have inhabited the houses and raised offspring. Locally, the Rocky Point Bird Observatory has assumed responsibility for Purple Martin colonies on South Van Island. The RPBO coordinator is Wallis Moore Reid. Courtney Edwards agreed to be the PC colony steward. Her office is right on the wharf where the boxes are located.

The overall effort in BC is administered by the Purple Martin  Recovery Society. Bruce Cousens out of Nanaimo is the Biologist who is the driving force behind the project.

Some websites are: http://www.georgiabasin.ca/puma.htm (the official website of Bruce Cousens mentioned above) and  http://rpbo.org/ 

RESEARCH ARTICLE: Conserv Genet DOI 10.1007/s10592-007-9358-3
High genetic diversity in the blue-listed British Columbia population of the purple martin maintained by multiple sources of immigrants Allan J. Baker, Annette D. Greenslade, Laura M. Darling and  J. Cam Finlay

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Hirundinidae
Genus: Progne
Species: P. subis
Progne subis
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Post North-easterly Storm on Weir’s beach, Dec 2014

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During the past few weeks, we have experienced several storms out of the north east at high tide. These images were taken to document some of the on-going problems from the extensive rip-rapping and seawall construction on that beach. See this page for summer 2013 images for comparison.

2014-12-26 weirserosion2

The solid sea-wall built only last year will lead to increased scouring and removal of sand. Unfortunately it will not only affect the crown land property in front of the wall, but the crown land foreshore adjacent to this property .

 

2014-12-26 weirserosin

Recent storms have dislodged many of the boulders near the south end of the beach. Note the rubble foreground which was previously sand beach.

2014-12-26 controlgate

This concrete control gate was built many years ago to control flooding into a lagoon. The rip-rap boulders around it have been disturbed by wave action.

2014-12-26 weirsbeachwidth

Site A= south end of the beach-sand eroded from base of rip-pap wall. Site B The border of where the rip-rap ends and the natural beach (going northward,) begins. C=the widened sand beach area backed by the natural beach. Scouring of the sand does not occur as it does further south on the beach.

2014-12-26 natural-portion

The berm on the North end of Weir’s beach is in a more natural state with logs and debris thrown up by storms. The and natural beach vegetation and debris absorbs the impact of the ocean energy and no scouring of the beach sand has occurred. This will lead to long-term beach stability and erosion-resistance.

See other posts and references on hardening of the shorelines by clicking on links below.
See this file on early pictures of Weir’s beach

Elephant Seal-dead on Weir’s beach

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Metchosin resident Jan Poulin reported a dead marine mammal today on Weir’s beach. Below are some pictures. It looks like a mature male, up to 4 m in length. It had been washed up in the swell form the North East storms over the last week. It has been dead for some time and will eventually probably cause a problem for the residents of the area. It has been reported to DFO.

2014-12-26 gfweirselsealdead

male elephant seal, dead on Weir’s Beach photo: G. Fletcher

Other images of the elephant seal : December 26, 2014

 

 

 

Taylor Beach and November sun.

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The skies are clear this week with out-flow winds from the northeast clearing the view of Mount Baker and the Olympic Mountains. With this comes colder temperatures and a few degrees of frost at night. Rains are expected to return next week.

2014-11-12taylorviewnorth

View North to Victoria, with Mount Baker (in Northern Washington State)  in the distance .

2014-11-12-taylorbeachsun

Mid-afternoon view south to William Head and the Olympic Mts. in the background.

2014-11-11 tankers

View East over Taylor Beach where the tanker and container ship traffic looms precariously.

 

Seabirds abundant on Taylor Beach today

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I had thought that the Mergansers which started showing up on Taylor Beach this past week were Common Merganser females. Now I am not so sure, as most of them lok more like Red-breasted merganser females . Click for enlargement.

merganser females

Group of female Mergansers off the north end of Taylor Beach

merganserfemaleclose

Zoomed in view of mergansers- possibly a mix of mainly red-breasted merganser females and common merganser females..

flyingcorm

Flying merganser females

flyingmergansersclose

Flying merganser females closer–

buffleheads

Buffleheads in large flocks of up to 100 individuals

buffleandcorm

Flying Buffleheads go past Double -crested Cormorants

shipand cormorants

Double-crested Cormorants with an ocean-going vessel in the background. If all projects for the Pacific North-west go ahead as planned, over 1000 more ships of this size above the high number already using this waterway, will be transiting these waters each year, all carrying bunker and diesel fuel and if Kinder Morgan has its way 350 a year carrying highly toxic dilbit. Click on the oil-spill risk category link below.

See the Census Page on the seabirds showing up in the last few weeks.

Common Loons ( Gavia immer) off shore today

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Nov 5: Yesterday  there were several loons offshore from Taylor Beach. They normally stay over 100 m off shore, so photography without a telephoto is challenging. I think the following images are of two Common Loons (Gavia immer) in various stages of maturity.

commonloon male

Common Loon off the bluff at the North end of taylor Beach

Nov 8 : Definitely Common Loons–a pair of them are feeding every day off Taylor beach (north end) this week.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Clade: Aequornithes
Order: Gaviiformes
Family: Gaviidae Coues, 1903
Genus: Gavia Forster, 1788
Species: G. immer
Gavia immer Morten Thrane Brunnich, 1764)

Metchosin Bioblitz 2013: North end of Sector 7, Taylor Beach

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Metchosin  BioBlitz Observations by Garry Fletcher and Sandra______on April 27, 2013 on the floodplane and estuary of Gooch Creek, on the 4645 William Head Road Property.

 

 

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