The rocky intertidal is coming into its full summer glory right now. The early morning low tides have been spectacular in May, and they’ll get better for the remaining few days of the month. This morning I went out to Franklin Point to poke around. Low tide was -1.8 feet (yippee!) at 06:13. And for…
Nature journaling
A week ago I snagged a stint with a traveling nature journal that is making the rounds. It’s a nature journal that is being sent to whoever wants to take it. Each user keeps the journal for five days or until five pages are filled, then sends it on to the next person. I was…
A snail’s pace
As we speed towards the summer solstice the days continue to get longer. The early morning low tides are much easier to get up for, as the sky is lightening by 05:30. Even so, when traveling an hour to get to the site, it’s nice when the low is later than that. This past Saturday…
Down to business
It never really feels like springtime until the swallows have returned to the marine lab. This year the barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) came back right on schedule in the last week of March. They have been flying around ever since. I’ve seen them gathering mud on the banks of Younger Lagoon, but they haven’t been…
From the tidepool to the stars
A few weeks ago I went out to Franklin Point and saw that the sea lettuces (Ulva sp.) were spawning in the high pools. I revisited the site today, with a lower tide to work with, and spent a considerable amount of time looking for and photographing the staurozoans. I did find some, too! But…
All dressed up with nowhere to go
For animals that do essentially nothing when you see them where they live, chitons have a lot of charm. They are the kind of animal that, once you develop the search image for them, you start seeing everywhere. It helps that they are easily recognized as being chitons because of their eight dorsal shell plates—nothing…
Shooting star
This morning I went to Pigeon Point to poke around and do some collecting. It’s a favorite site of mine, as it’s exposed and dynamic, with the diversity you’d expect. Of the sea stars, the most common by far are the six-armed stars in the genus Leptasterias. They are small (less than 8 cm in…
The algae get sexy, again
Way back in 2015 I wrote about some Ulva that spawned in a bowl at the lab, and delved into the mysteries of reproduction in the green algae. This morning I was out at Franklin Point and saw this: I had seen the sea lettuces (Ulva spp.) spawning in these high pools at Franklin Point…
Water fowl, in and out of the water
The other day I was on a field trip with a couple of students in the Natural History Club, at Younger Lagoon. We had permission to go down into the lagoon itself, where we chased tiny red mites around rocks in the intertidal without getting caught by waves, observed a very interesting interaction between a…
Weekend brunch
A utility pole across the street and one house down has, for years, been an object of interest for a variety of birds. The hairy and downy woodpeckers drum on it in the spring, and various songbirds hang out and rest on the top. About a month ago now I saw a raptor up there,…