The first field trip of the semester for my Ecology class is always a jaunt up the coast to Rancho del Oso and Waddell Beach. It’s a great place to start the practice of observing nature, because we can explore the forest in the morning, have lunch, and then wander along the beach in the…
General natural history
Findings on the beach, and a puzzle
A while back now I went out on a low tide even though the actual low was after sunset. I figured that it was low enough that I’d have plenty of time to poke around as the tide was receding. And given that there were promising clouds in the sky, I took my good camera…
Now you see me, now you don’t
The intertidal sculpins are delightful little fish with lots of personality. They’re really fun to watch, if you have the patience to sit still for a while and let them do their thing. A sculpin’s best defense is to not be seen, so their first instinct is to freeze where they are. Then, if a…
Taking wing at a monarch sanctuary
Autumn is migration season in California. We all know that, in the northern hemisphere, birds fly south for the winter and return north for the summer. And indeed, this is a very good time to go bird watching along the Pacific Flyway, as migrating birds stop to rest and feed at places such as Elkhorn…
Things living and dead
Sometimes dead things can be very informative. Not in the same way as their living counterparts, of course, but there are times when observing a dead specimen reveals details that cannot easily be discerned when the creature is alive. For example, most living birds don’t let you get a close look at their feet. Dead…
Autumn at the slough
This time of year is when California earns its nickname as the Golden State. It isn’t only the dried vegetation blanketing the hillsides. The light itself takes on a golden hue, especially in the morning and evening when the sun is low on the horizon. Photographers call the time periods just after sunrise and just…
Pescadero
A few weeks ago I was contacted by a woman named Kathleen, who reads this blog and is herself a student of the seaweeds. She said that she studies a site up at Pescadero, about an hour up the coast from me. We decided to meet up during the series of low tides around the…
Algae at Pigeon Point
The annual Snapshot Cal Coast period is scheduled to coincide with the best midsummer low tides, to maximize opportunities for people to get out and blitz the intertidal. The whole idea of Snapshot Cal Coast is to document as much biodiversity as possible, to render a comprehensive account of what our coastal and nearshore biota…
Counting critters
Professor Emeritus John Pearse has been monitoring intertidal areas in the Monterey Bay region since the early 1970s. Here on the north end of Monterey Bay, he set up two research sites: Opal Cliffs in 1972 and Soquel Point in 1970. These sites are separated by about 975 meters (3200 feet) as the gull flies….
Castles in the sand
If, like me, you are fortunate enough to live near the coast in Northern California, you get to visit the tidepools. And when you do, you may notice something that looks like a pile of sand in the mid tidal zone below the mussel beds. When you venture down and touch the sand, you’ll find…