Yesterday I had some time to kill before getting a COVID test, and, as usual, wandered down to the ocean. This time I was at Seacliff State Beach. It was pretty crowded, so I walked onto the pier to see if the fishermen were having any luck. They weren’t, really. One man kept catching jack…
Tag: fish
Catch of the day
Sometimes even a well-known site can present a surprise. Here’s an example. Yesterday I went up to Davenport to scope things out and see how the algae were doing. This is the time of year that they start growing back after the winter senescence. I also took my nature journal along, hoping to find a…
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…
A sand-dwelling sea star
We usually think of sea stars as the colorful animals that stick to rocks in the intertidal. You know, animals like Pisaster ochraceus (ochre star) and Patiria miniata (bat star). I see these animals all the time in the intertidal, and if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ve probably seen the photos that…
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….
Of rocks and fish in the desert
I don’t remember what I expected from my first view of Death Valley. I knew it to contain the lowest elevation (Badwater Basin, 282 feet below sea level) in North America and that it was really hot in the summer, but beyond that I had no clue. [Aside: the marine biologist in me wondered which…
Rediscovery of a lost species
About a year and a half ago I wrote about salmonids and beavers in the Lake Tahoe-Taylor Creek region, specifically about the non-native kokanee salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) that were introduced into the region in the 1930s and 1940s as a game fish. Since then the kokanee has displaced the only salmonid native to the Tahoe…
Saving a species
How does a group of people go about trying to save a federally endangered species? The answer, of course, depends on the species. However, you can bet your bottom dollar that it takes a tremendous effort over many years by many dedicated and talented people, all of whom know that in the end their work…
A different sort of hatching
My bald sculpins have begun hatching! Their egg mass has been disintegrating over the past few days and I couldn’t tell if that was because they were dying or hatching. Yesterday I was able to spend some time looking at them and was surprised to see that a few little pink blobs had wiggled their way…
A few days make all the difference
Almost a week ago, my sculpin eggs were doing great. The embryos had eyes and beating hearts and were actively squirming around inside their eggs. A few of them had died but overall they seemed to be developing well. I had high hopes that they would continue to do so, and began to think of what…