I hope you’ve been as lucky as Lincoln has been in storing up food for his Thanksgiving feast. He has a message for you.
… before the storm.
Photo by Pat G.
California sea lions used to visit Vancouver Island every spring and stay for the summer, following the salmon up the coast and back down to California. But in recent years many have set up residence on Vancouver Island. Why do all that traveling when the food supply is fairly constant here?
The Steller’s sea lion, named for the same man who studied the Steller’s jay, is another type of sea lion that visits our coast, usually farther north.
From these photos, I can’t tell which is which, or even whether there are both kinds of sea lions here. I do know that California sea lions, averaging about 220 lbs. (females) and about 700+ lbs. (males) are much smaller than the Steller’s sea lions which can weigh on average 580 lbs. (females) and almost 1200 lbs. (males). The males quite often weigh much more than that.
Their loud barking carries a long way across the water, as they sun themselves and socialize.
Not enough room on the raft? Make your own raft of bodies.
Sea lions don’t target humans who might be in the water with them, but they have been known to nip them when they get too close, and a nip with those huge teeth would not be funny.
Enemies of sea lions are mainly sharks and killer whales.
Picture by Pat G.
I’m surprised these sea lions seem so calm when the coastal ferry, Salish Orca, motors past, especially when it has pictures of the killers on its hull.
Here is a video taken by a friend. You can hear a couple of short sea lion barks (or coughs) near the end of the clip.
I took this picture from my back (second storey) deck to show how long the branches of the fir trees have become. They almost reach the house now. The philadelphus (mock orange), on the right, has also grown up high and dense.
Our friend offered to take down some of the big lower branches. I’ve blurred his face for his privacy. He did a great job of taking those huge limbs off, but see the photo below. Dickie, the squirrel, was extremely upset.
He’s on top of the root of one of the fir trees, and we had to shoo him away so he wouldn’t get hurt.
Some of the branches that came down are pictured above, but a couple more huge ones joined them after I took this picture. Dickie came back to check on the progress and ended up hiding under the big ground-level canopy of branches.
If I’m not already a nut job, then after doing this nut job, I will be one.
I had thought there were no hazelnuts on the trees this year but I was wrong. They were a bit late to develop, but they were quite prolific. When I saw that the raccoons and the squirrels were harvesting them, day (squirrels) and night (raccoons), I thought I’d better get in on the action. Looks like a little black cocker is also wanting to get in on the action.
I let the nuts sit out in the sun to dry out for a couple of weeks, and then, as the nights grew cooler I had to do something with the nuts or watch them go moldy. It’s not cold enough to make a fire in the woodstove so hanging the nuts in burlap bags by the fire was not an option.
I decided to crack them and put the nutmeat in ziplocs and freeze them. This way I can take out what I need to use for baking through the winter.
I tried them out in a batch of banana/blueberry/hazelnut muffins. Turned out quite good.
“Folks, I’ve been working really hard from first light to last, collecting hazelnuts and hiding them for later. I hope you won’t mind if I take time to have a snack. Gotta keep up my strength.”
“Watch me in this video. See how fast I twirl this hazelnut around so I can eat it evenly on all sides. Kind of the way Anneli eats an ice cream cone, except she can’t go as fast as I can. Also, she doesn’t use her teeth, but I need to use mine to cut away the nutshell when it gets in the way.
And by the way, Anneli says to say she’s sorry she fumbled the camera partway through. Doesn’t show me at my best, but she tries.”
It turns out that the hazelnut trees in my front yard had some nuts on them after all this year, although many fruit trees were nearly empty.
Under cover of darkness, the raccoons visit regularly, filling their boots with all they can eat. I’ve tried to lighten the photos so we can see the raccoons, but you may have to use your imagination a fair bit. The spot under the tree on the left is where the flashlight found the raccoons.
They get right up into the trees and knock down what they can.
Then they crack the nuts open with their sharp teeth. I find the shells in the morning. They don’t bother to clean up after themselves.
Over the next few days I frantically pick as many hazelnuts as I can. There is still plenty for the raccoons. Today, two squirrels had a chattering spat in one of the nut trees just six feet away from me – probably telling me to scram.
“WHA-A-A-T?” says Dickie (Lincoln’s grandson). “Do you see what they’re doing? Get away from my hazelnuts! First the raccoons, and now the people!”
wordsfromanneli 