No need for feet

In an empty boat berth at the Discovery Harbour Marina, hundreds of young herring were dancing. There's no other word for it; they swirled in loops and figure eights, twisted down into dark water, then leapt to break the surface, creating rows of winking lights. They split into groups, which met and mingled in complex patterns, then pivoted to promenade stage right, in unison. All that was missing was the music.

Upswing

Spin

All together now

(The water reflected the clear blue of the sky, and a few clouds; the herring were silvery grey. I saturated the colour and increased the contrast to define the herring.)

Goldilegs

A tiny, gold and grey spider found herself a warm corner at the top of the staircase. I climbed up and took her photo to post in the Arachtober Flickr group, but she was so pretty I've decided to post it here, as well.

Cellar spider, maybe a quarter of an inch long.

And now, goodnight!

Underwater flower garden

When I see the word, "worms", my stick-in-the-mud brain still jumps to the picture of a soft, pink, eyeless, squirmy tube; the earthworm of my gardens. I still have to remind it of worms with eyes and jaws, worms with legs; a multitude of legs, worms with long conveyor belt tentacles, worms with lids, worms that conduct imaginary orchestras. And worms that look like flowers.

Maroon, peach, green, pink. Feather duster worms, growing downward, under the dock.

Pale green and blueberry "flowers".

My Marine Life Encyclopedia has 49 pages of worms, almost 300 different species of marine worms in this area, including 8 species of feather duster worms, like these, from half an inch tall up to about 10 inches.

I'm not sure which species these are. The largest are about 6 to 8 inches tall, as far as I can tell without diving to measure them. The community may be a mixed grouping of the Split-branch feather duster (8 inches, solid colour plume), the Vancouver feather duster (10 inches, banded crown) or the polymorph feather duster (7 inches, variable crown); and the whole bunch of them have tiny eyes, looking back at me.

Lifer! Probably for both of us.

Under the logs and lumber of any floating construction, down where the sun rarely reaches, the water level is constant, the currents weakened, myriads of animals and plants live their sheltered lives, away from the prying eyes of the humans who clomp along overhead. Unless there is a gap between the floats, the surface is mometarily still, the light turns down at the perfect angle, and a human just chances to look down that gap at that moment. And then, if the human happens to be of a curious bent, she flops down on her knees or belly, and peers down that gap. And sees eyes, staring back at her.

Spiny pink scallop, Chlamys hastata. She has dozens of eyes, lined up along her lips. She can't see as well as I do; all she saw of me (I think) was my shadow.

Another angle, showing a bit of her shell, and two anemones sheltering underneath. The blue "pillar" is a mussel shell.

I'll back off a bit, to show the mini underwater garden along the base of the float I was lying on.

Tunicates, purple stuff, more tunicates, mystery critters, worms, and hydroids. Yesterday's anemones were just to the left of this patch.

Moving to the right; more tunicates, and the scallop.

I cropped these photos down, to show the individual critters a bit better:

Tunicates, unidentified. (With intake, outflow siphons circled.)

As far as I can tell, the pale cyan blobs have siphons, as well, and would be another species of tunicate (aka sea squirt). The red line in the centre points to another animal that is so transparent that its internal organs, and its food are visible through the wall. I think the other red line points to a half-way shut down anemone. On the far left, there is a hydroid stalk, and on the left of the base of the big tunicates, the flowery shape is the feeding tentacles of a worm.

Tunicates, tunicates, worms, etc. And what are those two potato-like blobs?

And there's still that pink thingie:

I think it may be a compound ascidian. like the red ascidian, or maybe the mushroom compound tunicate. Or something else? What do you think?

Worms tomorrow.

Down payment

There are more things in heaven and earth under the wharf, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

With apologies to Wm. Shakespeare (Hamlet Act 1, scene 5)

I looked at one of the under-the-wharf photos, and was lost. Herring can wait! I've got critters to identify, or to wish I could identify. Here's the first of the lot, and the easiest to recognize.

Three plumose anenomes, a bit of sea lettuce, some purply, tentacled gift-wrap ribbon, other stuff, worms, maybe.

But what is that pink, five-armed, blobby thing in the middle? It doesn't look like a starfish. Or does it?

This was taken down the crack between two wharf segments, with the sunlight illuminating the water beneath, and glancing down at an angle from above. The blue at the bottom is wharf paint.

Now, back to work: I've got some strange beasties to identify.

Early supper

I checked the tide tables for Campbell River. Not promising. All the low tides this month and the next fall in the middle of the night. And therefore all those glorious, teeming creatures and seaweeds are out of reach and invisible for the time being.

So I went down to Discovery Harbour Marina. There, the critters rise with the tide; some of them are visible, if not reachable. And there I found anemones, herring, starfish, sponges, spiders (not sea critters, of course, but they're everywhere) and more. Even a hunting seal! (But a whale went by, and I was too low down to see it. Next time, maybe.)

Here's the seal.

Swimming in the shade between the first wharf and the rip rap.

I got just this short glimpse of him before he ducked back underwater. Ten minutes later, walking back to the ramp, I saw him again. This time, he had a mouthful:

Supper is served; fresh salmon steak, and the head, too!

He dove, came up again, gulping salmon in big bites, wolfing it down as a dog does. He went down again, and the ripples faded. I waited a while, but he had gone, taking his leftovers with him. A gull swooped low overhead, but there were no scraps to be found, and he left. So did I.

I'll be processing the rest of the photos for a few days. Herring tomorrow, I think.

Pink, fading to white

I picked up a small handful of "fake" coral on the beach. It grows lower down in the intertidal zone, and only fragments are tossed up by the tide, then, since they are fragile, they crumble to powdery chalk quickly. Half of my handful disintegrated on the way home, but a few branches survived.

Coralline algae, in water. The green stuff is green algae, growing on the branches.

These look like coral, but are actually a seaweed, one of the red algae. They collect calcium carbonate from the seawater, and incorporate it into their cells, where it becomes almost an exterior "shell". This seems to serve to protect them from algae eaters, from snails to crabs and hermits.

 Only a few species of mollusk, such as the whitecap limpet or the lined chiton feed on coralline algae.  (From U. of Oregon)

It's a red algae, but the calcium whitens it, turning it pink while it's alive. As it dies, the colour bleaches out until only the white chalk remains.

Dry, on a little ceramic plate. The pink is already fading.

No. No way! Nope.

"No, I am not going to face the camera."

"No, you can't look me in the eyes."

"No. Just no."

"I'm not going to show my face."

"In your dreams!"

"And you can't make me! Never!"

In a glass box with one mirrored side. She didn't reckon with mirrors.

Recycling can wait

I took a quick run inland today, searching for a recycling depot, which I never found. But somehow, I ended up back on the coast, getting gas, and from there, it was inevitable that I'd wind up on a beach, and spend an hour chasing sandpipers.

They love to stand in lines, usually facing the open water.

The sandpipers stood or foraged along the water's edge in small groups, always a fair distance away from me. I was only carrying the little pocket camera, so I zoomed as far as it would go, took a photo, took two steps, another photo, two steps ... And just when I would almost be in range, the whole flock would rise in a panic, and fly away, shouting, "Peet! Peet!" as they went.

But there were always more flocks, just a bit farther along. Zoom, step, click, repeat. And away they flew. Again and again. In the end, it was a long hike back to the car.

The same log. Three more trusting birds. For the moment.

Zooming 'way in. I don't know what he's finding to eat; I went to look, and it's all shredded seaweeds. And swarms of flies; that may be today's menu item.

These, I think, are semi-palmated sandpipers.* They winter farther south, but the weather is mild here on the inner channel; winter's a long way away and the living is easy still.

*Update: Fred Schueler suggests Turnstones. I think he's right; they're Black Turnstones.

Worth a second look

The shore around the artificial tidal pool looked sterile. Dead, grey rocks, dead, grey stones, and dead, greyed logs. Nothing more. At least, so it seemed until I stopped to look more closely.

Where the tide had just retreated, the still wet stones were dotted with tiny snails. Around the dry stones, there were none.  I sat on a handy stone and started to dig down, moving one stone at a time, cautiously. And down between the top layer of stones, where there was shade and dampness, I found snails aplenty.

Pair of snails on wet stone. And the stones aren't all that grey, after all. Not while they're wet.

Snail on dry hand, checking to see if it's safe to travel. He decided it wasn't.

Digging down further, to where the stones were like oddly-shaped peas, and quite wet, I started to find small crabs.

Escaping, ready to take a daredevil leap into space. (I put him down gently, instead.)

"Smiles". A different crab, less frantic. They're green shore crabs. All of the ones I saw were in these darker tones.

Besides the crabs and snails, one species of each, I found several small limpets who declined having their photo taken. No worms or flatworms, only one barnacle, a brave little soul colonizing new territory.

Later, skirting the pool, I noticed movement, and stooped to watch a pair of hermits, the male dragging the female around, then stopping to mate with her, briefly. And then, "Thank you, ma'am," and he dropped her and hurried away.

"So long!" The female is curled up inside her shell, recovering. The rainbow colours on the male's shell and body are from the sunlight on the water they're in. (About 4 inches deep.)

The female, having an exciting day. They're grainy hand hermits, with blue polka dots on the pincers, and red/orange antennae and eyes.

I only saw this one small clump of seaweed, probably brought in with the latest tide.

Wait, wait!

There's an artificial tidal pool just down the road from my place; all rocks, no sand, no seaweeds, difficult walking on either steep, sliding banks, scattered logs, or rocks that may roll underfoot. I was heading south to better beachcombing grounds, when I noticed the birds out on the breakwater.

Stones, logs, rocks, black birds, white birds.

The pool was created by the Rotary Club some years ago, to provide a safe place for kids to swim, because the tide here is so strong, racing along the Strait at 35 km/hr, and so cold. The rocks soak up the heat of the sun at low tide, and slow down the current, going and coming. And warm the birds' feet while the tide is too high for foraging.

A bit of the breakwater, with gull and 4 oystercatchers. And guano.

I heard the oystercatchers before I saw them; while they sat on the breakwater, they were silent, but every so often, a small flock would lift off and head south, calling as they went. "Weeep, weeep, ..." is how I heard the call, but they may have been saying, "Wait, wait, wait!"

They fly low over the water, and very fast.

Zooming in on a pair.

The tide was going out. When I arrived on the beach, the breakwater and island were thick with birds, black and white. When I left an hour later, they were accessible on foot (with some difficulty), and only a few gulls remained.

Critters on this beach tomorrow.

Failed excursion

I hadn't seen the Campbell River beaches yet this trip; I've been too busy unpacking. I finally set out this afternoon. Too late; no sooner had I reached the highway along the shore than it started to rain steadily. And I had come out without my jacket and only the pocket camera.

So I drove south, looking at beaches from the car, in the rain. Grey water, grey skies, grey stones, mist. A couple out in a skiff, not going anywhere, maybe fishing. More mist. And all along the shore there were people, ignoring the weather, out for their afternoon walk. Next time, I'll join them. Properly dressed, of course.

High tide, on a cloudy day. In June of 2010. Today, the light in the sky was still there, but barely.

Red boat on a blue-grey sea. June, 2010.

Good travellers

Here's how moving day went for my little community of intertidal critters. First, a new shipment of eelgrass and sea lettuce arrived, a double load; the tank was packed all the way from the surface to the sand underneath. That was fun; a wonderfully complicated labyrinth to play on for a couple of days.

Then, the water disappeared. Like water-changing day, except that the hermits weren't transferred to a bowl and given treats of shrimp or fish. And the water didn't come back. But the eelgrass and sea lettuce were still wet, so that helped.

And then things got weird. For half a day, there was a constant rumble and vibration, frequent joltings and sloshings of wet sand. And they couldn't see anything; someone had covered their home with a dark green roof. (Just a towel, to keep the ice packs in place and the road pollution out.)

And then, light! The roof came off, there was a bit more jolting and tipping, and then the blessed water came back.

And all was well.

A few minutes later, as I was adjusting the pump, a hermit came to the front of the tank, and stood looking at me for a long time.

"Is it over? Are you going to take care of us again?'

And then, as if reassured, he turned and went looking for something to eat.

And all survived the journey, and seem to be happier here. Maybe it's the water; although I filtered the Lower Mainland water, let it sit a few days, and then added a chlorine remover, it still may have been slightly off. Campbell River water actually tastes good.

I worry about the lone sand dollar; they so often die early in the tank, or maybe it's because I pick them up from the sand while they are already dying. This one seems ok, but was losing a few of his spines. Now, he's out and around, roaming, spines going busily, pushing him on his way. This afternoon, I saw him climbing over a discarded snail shell; I didn't know they could do that!

And two of the leafy hornmouth snails spent this afternoon mating. Life is good, they say, "Let's make babies!"

Previous tenant

Well, I'm here in Campbell River, half unpacked, sort of settled in. My name is on the lease, but I've met a few long-term residents who disapproved of the extra company. This big guy had laid claim to the hall closet.

He's about an inch and a half long, toe to toe.

I let him be, but installed a light, and went about loading jackets and brooms and odds and ends that don't have a home yet, and by the next morning, he'd gone in search of quieter rooms. Just as well; I didn't really want to find him in the pocket of a jacket one day.

Mini-selfie

Hawkweed and stripy fly. Beach Grove:

And the mini-selfie, with camera, on the fly's back.

Everything's packed and lined up at the door, ready for the truck, Except the computer, my breakfast, and my toothbrush. And the tank. Shutting down the computer in a few minutes. Tomorrow, the ferry and Campbell River!

Hairy!

Unidentified plant, near Heckman Pass. 5000 ft.:

Do you recognize this?

One more day to go. Tomorrow I'll pack up my desk and computer, and then probably be off-line until Friday. See you then!

Decorator spider

Years ago, I was given the smokestack of a foundered tugboat, all that was worth salvaging, it seemed. It has served me variously as a "conversation piece", as a flower pot, with tendrils of bacopa hanging out of the mouth like smoke in a downdraft, and, more recently, as a dry spot to store recycled garden bags.

It had been painted in successive coats of marine orange, red, and green. In recent years, the paint has been dropping off in chunks, layer by layer.

Old photo of morning light on my wall, with half the smokestack.

I'm almost finished packing; we're loading the truck two mornings from now. I brought in the smokestack to clean off the dust and bugs, ready for transport. When I up-ended it to see if any plastic bags were still stuck half-way down, I found, instead, a fat spider and a web across the entire width of the smokestack, and loaded with paint chips, orange, red, and green.

Spider and her paint chips.. Maybe she's planning a re-decorating job?

"Hmmm. Green is good, but red looks warmer, and winter's coming. Or would orange be better? Decisions, decisions ..."

I dusted the outside of the smokestack, but I left Ma Spider and her paint chips alone.

Update: She's a Steatoda grossa. Thanks, people!

Blue hills

I still have a few photos left from the Bella Coola trip: these are from the beginning of the start of the run-up to The Hill (always capitalized like that.

The mountains of the Bella Coola Valley, from near Heckman Pass.

Zooming out to show the gravel road, and a bit of the car motor.

From here, just inside the eastern edge of Tweedsmuir Park, the road goes down, down to a bridge over a creek, then up over a ridge, down again, up again, with each drop more precipitous. And then the road goes stark raving mad, dropping in grades up to 18% (7% is considered a steep hill), twisting and reversing, sometimes down to one rutted lane around blind rock faces, with nothing on your left but a sheer drop down, down, down to the tops of trees and your road below you. And then there is a river, and the road levels out, and you're at the foot of those mountains in the distance of these photos.

Kids drive up and down The Hill for fun. I white-knuckle it, but it's still exhiliarating.

Double rainbow

A rainy afternoon ended with a burst of brilliant sunshine from underneath the rainclouds. I crossed two bridges watching this display, and finally pulled off the highway where I found a half-decent shoulder so I could take some photos. The outer rainbow was already fading; it had been almost as bright as the inner one as I crossed the first bridge.

Left half of rainbow, through the open window.

Left half of the rainbow, through the windshield.

I could have taken a single photo of the whole thing, if I'd just been a little less picky about wet feet. The "half-decent shoulder" was in a deep puddle.