Cave dwellers

The morning brought a faint hint of sunshine, a promise of more. I loaded the camera, grabbed my coat, and hit the road. By the time I'd run a couple of errands, it was raining, but not too hard. I drove down to the shore to look at the water from the shelter of the car.

The waves were high and pounding in; as soon as I parked, I could hear them roaring. Rain or no rain, I had to be on the beach.

Waves, and a duck, resting calmly in the trough..

The tide was out farther than I've seen it so far this fall and winter. I went down to the water's edge, turned over a few rocks: crabs, crabs, crabs, and tiny barnacles.

Barnacles on the bottom of a rock. One limpet, one mussel. The crabs all ran for cover.

Sandpiper, just out of reach of the waves.

It was raining a bit harder now, but off in the distance, I could see the strange sandstone formations we had explored in bygone summers. I sheltered the camera under my coat and went to look at them.

Round rocks, and a dark row of flat sandstone, on a dark, rainy day.

This part of the beach has a solid underpinning, not sand, but flattish sandstone, with occasional "tables" fringed with seaweeds, rimmed and topped with small round indentations, up to about an inch in diameter. In between the sandstone tables, smallish, round stones  cover most of the lower slab. Large rocks are scattered randomly across the whole area. An unusual mix.

Sample arrangement.

This one got tipped on an angle. How, I don't know; it's heavy.

Holes around the rim of two tables. They remind me of cave dwellings I have seen on a Mexican mountainside.

When we investigated rocks like these a few summers ago, most of the pits were occupied by small, green anemones. I couldn't see any now, in the winter; instead, small periwinkle snails are hiding there. Maybe the anemones are underneath them, waiting for warmer weather.

Barnacles out in the open, snails in the tubs.

Anemones in sandstone pits, summer of 2010.

The rain picked up, and my camera was getting wet. I clutched it under my coat and hurried back to shore. I'll be back, next sunny day at low tide.

Janitorial staff

Just another couple of hermit portraits ...

Hard at work, cleaning the fuzz off barnacles.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus. He's lost one pincer, but he still keeps busy.

Unexpected guests

I was hunting for barnacles. My leafy hornmouth snails were hungry, and that's all they would eat. And I wasn't having any luck. I walked miles down the shore, over several days, finding nothing. Not a barnacle in sight, except on huge rocks. At the higher tide levels, they don't like small stones that can be rolled around by the waves, crushing their shells. For critters with only feet and an intestine, they're remarkably smart.

Last Saturday, I was out searching again. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I gave up and started walking at the extreme high tide line, where seaweeds and bits of driftwood tossed up by the recent stormy weather were drying. And there, far above their normal haunts, I found three large oysters, covered in barnacles.

They had to be dead by now, cast up this far above the usual water line for several days. But the barnacles would be ok, and I could open up the oysters, scrape them out, and put the clean shells with their load of snail food into the tank. I brought them home.

Except that they weren't dead. When I put them in water to wash them off, they opened up. When I touched them, they closed down. Alive and healthy; they're hardier than I imagined.

Oysters in the aquarium. With happy leafy hornmouth snails and hermits.

The snails got busy right away, eating several big barnacles each every day. And the scavengers, hermits and crabs, swarmed over the shells, picking away all the rotting seaweed, cleaning out dying barnacles. (The snails won't touch those: they like their meals very fresh.) The oysters pumped water in and out as the hermits cleaned off their lips.

Under the detritus, the hermits discovered a couple of anemones, looking miserable, shut down and fraying. The hermits took over, tearing away all the dead flesh, cleaning out the wounds. A day later, the anemones were as good as new.

Anemone # 2. Looking good. Smaller than a barnacle. Pink-tipped anemone, Anthopleura elegantissima, maybe.

Yesterday's anemone, once the minor surgery was finished, went for a walk and ended up parked on one of the snails. In the top photo, above, it's on the snail on the right.

While I was at it, I took a few more photos of the warty tunicate (the orange tubes in front of the oysters above). It has also been thoroughly cleaned by the hermits; they're busy little beasties.

Warty tunicate, Pyura haustor, showing the "warts", now that the old gunk is gone.

Zooming in on one siphon. It looks like a smaller tunicate is growing there.

Pink-tipped

An unexpected new addition to my tank.

Just a baby, starting to explore his world, riding on a Leafy Hornmouth snail.

More photos, and the story, tomorrow.

Water always wins

Since I was a child, so long ago, I loved to sit on the shore or a dock, just watching the waves. On they came, one after another, never ceasing, always changing and never changed. On and on and on; they'd been rolling in since time immemorial, and they'd be rolling in when we were long gone. More than the mountains, more than the stony cliffs, more even than the stars above me, the ocean settled me, gave me a sense of permanence, of something to count on.

Two old pilings catching a wave; constant  movement meets stolid resistance.

I've grown old, and the waves still roll in, as always. And I'm still awed by their power; such a soft, yielding substance is water, yet it hammers away, year after year, rolling stones, crumbling breakwaters, consuming pilings, rocks, cliffs, entire land masses.

Rolls, circles, droplets, and Velcro hooks (Far left)

I walked on the quiet beach the other day; the only sounds were the constant swish, swish, swish as each wave landed on the beach. And the rattle and rumble of stones pushed to and fro, the shore being shaped, yet again, by the encroaching tide.

Desert isle

South of Campbell River, the highway follows the shoreline to Oyster Bay, then veers inland. From here on south, access to the shore is via occasional roads through the forest to resort areas or parks. Keeping to these roads, I'd missed something important.

Saturday afternoon was sunny and warm; the tide was high, but going down. I took a path to the beach from the south end of Oyster Bay Park, and headed south along the shore, past the front walls of a resort, past a wide lawn with notices on the beach for guests of the next resort, heading for a bright spot where sunlight had managed to filter through the trees to a patch of beach.

The wind was up and the waves were choppy. Only two boats were in sight from here, one of them towing a barge laden with bright-labelled boxes.

Boats, barge, and Mitlenatch Island, 5 miles away.

Looking at my photos later, I zoomed in on that island, then searched for it on Google. It's not shown on the maps, but on Google Earth, there it is, in the middle of the Strait, highlighted separately from the water surrounding it. And there's a name: Mitlenatch Island. It's even a Provincial Park.

Mitlenatch Island Nature Provincial Park is home to the largest seabird colony in the Strait of Georgia. Glaucous-winged gulls, pelagic cormorants, pigeon guillemots, rhinoceros auklets and black oystercatchers also return to Mitlenatch each spring to breed. All sedentary marine life, including abalones, scallops and sea cucumbers are fully protected within this zone. Some of the largest garter snakes in BC reside here. These snakes are frequently encountered along trails and in beach and tide pool areas, where they feed on small fish such as sculpins and blennies. This park is a favourite haul out for harbour seals, northern and California sea lions. The sea lions are generally present from late autumn to mid-May. River otters, killer whales and harbour porpoises are often sighted offshore. (Wikipedia)

Cormorants! Garter snakes! Sea lions! Rhinocerous auklets! Guillemots and porpoises and whales and sea cucumbers! And more!

Mitlenatch Island is home to the largest seabird nesting colony in the Strait of Georgia ... (BC Parks)

It's a dry island, which is why it shows up against the background of our coastal rain forests. It's in the Vancouver Island rain shadow, and gets about half the rainfall that we do in Campbell River, just a few miles away. It even has cacti!

Visit in May when the island’s meadows of spring wildflowers are in bloom, or in late May to July when the harvest brodia blooms and in the last half of June when the coastal cactus bloom. (BC Parks)

Most of the island is off-limits to visitors, but there are a few trails and a bird blind. Volunteer wardens stay on the island during the summer to ensure that people stay to the trails and don't harass the sea lions. Fishing off-shore is not permitted, nor is any sort of collecting, except for photos. And memories.

And it's accessible only by boat. The only local boat tour I can find starts from Cortes Island; to get there for a day trip this May, I have to take an early-morning ferry to Quadra Island, drive across the island, take a second ferry to Cortes Island, and take a shuttle across Cortes to Manson Bay, a trip that has to be repeated in reverse in the evening. Expensive and exhausting; but I've already pinned it to my calendar. This is a place I must see!

People food

In midwinter, the seaweed harvest on the shore is limited; here, it's mostly shreds of red algae, much battered, and mostly rotting. Occasionally, then, I supplement my critters' diet with a bit of people food, from the supermarket. Dried nori seaweed, made for sushi wraps. The brand I buy contains nothing but seaweed; no flavourings or additives. And all my critters love it! (Even the mud snails.)

Here's a green shore crab, hogging a section for himself, keeping an eye out for marauding hermits.

"Mine, mine, mine, all mine!"

I gave them enough for a small plate of sushi last night. This morning, there wasn't a shred left.

Contact!

I fed my hermit crabs a special treat today, and spent some time trying to get photos of them swarming over it, chowing down.

So I'm zoomed in there, almost touching the scratched glass wall, with the lens aimed an inch away, and next to no depth of field, the screen amplified to its maximum, following a dancing hermit in swirling water, with hands that insist on shaking. In the screen, I see a bit of leg, a section of antenna, then a blur, then hairs, something splotchy, blur, hair, seaweed, leg ... And then suddenly, an eye swims into focus. And it's amazing how swift and visceral my response is; an eye! Intelligence! Contact!

"Hi!"

"I see you there!"

I hadn't noticed before the smaller patterning in a hairy hermit's eye.

Click to see full size. Hexagonal sections, laid down in striped rows.

I wonder what they think of the camera's eye, so close.

Early bloomers

I guess it's spring. The evergreen viburnum is flowering.

Viburnum buds and early flowers. January 13th.

All the websites I've looked at say it blooms from April to maybe July, except for one study that found an outlier blooming in January, on the east coast, 'way back in 1932. (The study was done in 1980.)

It's warmer here on Vancouver Island, and this may become the hottest year recorded so far. (2015 beat all previous records, and 2014 was the warmest previous year; I see a possible trend here.) But given our unpredictable weather pattern, these flowers may be jumping the gun. It could freeze hard any day, without warning.

It has rained every day since I took this photo, and they're promising us mostly warm rain for the next two weeks. But that's normal spring weather, too.

Postscript: I realize most of the continent is far from enjoying spring weather this week, what with blizzards and freezing rain, thunderstorms and floods, and I'm sorry. I hope it's over soon, without loss of life or too much damage. And I'll stop grumbling about a bit of rain now.

Grass on the breakwater

At Robert Ostler Park in downtown Campbell River.

Study in contrasts.

On the hunt

A Leafy Hornmouth snail searching for food climbed the tank wall to the water surface, skating on his collected bubbles.

Ceratostoma foliatum, and bubbles.

They're out of barnacles. And they're hungry. They're checking every corner, every old shell or rock, even the glass walls. And they're not finding anything.

My bad. I'd better go "barnacle shopping" on the beach asap.

Deep blues

Trying my hand at a panorama shot:

Docks at Campbell River, on a sunny day last week. Half a dozen photos stitched together.

Another sunny day, more or less the same boats, different perspective.

Baikie Island, off-season

There is a sign near the entry to Baikie Island. A small rectangle, bashed, stained, and bent, on the street sign post. The street appears to be a lane through a construction company's storage area; gravelled, pot-holed, curving between stacks of pallets, old machinery, huge rusting tanks. I'd been down there before, searching for a way to the river bank, and gave up, feeling as if I were intruding. But I persisted this time, and at the end there's a parking spot, and two big parks' board signs.

It was raining when I parked, but not too heavily. I grabbed my pocket camera and headed down the main trail, hiding the camera under my jacket to keep the rain off.

"The Mill Pond Now". Not quite. The Mill Pond as it is in the summer. On the back side of the sign is the mill pond, before the restoration. Not pretty.

A bridge leading onto the island provides a view of the pond. On the far side, mallards slept in the rain; out in the water, buffleheads, coots, and goldeneyes were diving. Chickadees and other small birds poked around in the wet grasses.

The island still has a few signs of its industrial past; bits of metal and plastic embedded in the soil, a roll of rubber sheeting, a log ramp of sorts at the outer edge. And many old, greasy, mangled, and blackened snags and stumps, left as is, standing out against the wet greenery.

Tortured wood

There were several stumps inverted and jammed into the ground like this, with the roots upward and grass growing on top. I'm having trouble imagining why.

At the far end, there's a small beach. A mere stone's throw away, on the other side of the channel, there's the exiled machinery, piled high on the shore.

A large, rusty ramp, big enough for loaded logging trucks. And on the tip, a belted kingfisher. Treetop or ramp; whatever gives a good view of the fish in the water is ok with her.

Female belted kingfisher. The male doesn't have the rusty belt.

Callling, calling. She kept this up as long as I was in hearing distance.

Her rattle fitted right in with the industrial setting; she sounded like metal cables grating on their pulleys as they unwind. (Listen: Cornell All About Birds)

View from the tip. With raindrops on the water.

I was wet and cold, and worried about the rain on the camera. I hurried back to the car, but I'll be back, when the sun shines.

Butter and teeth

I found this fungus on a rotting stump on Baikie Island. (Yes! I found the way in!)

Unidentified tooth fungus.

I've looked in my mushroom guide, and scanned hundreds of photos on the web, and can't find any to quite match it. It looks, in spots, like some of the photos of Hericium sp., but the general structure is wrong. Or maybe it's a toothy polypore. I give up, for now.

At least this one was easy; it grew at the base of the same stump, and was what called me over in the first place.

Orange witches butter. With a curious sowbug, peeping out. A second later, he was back in hiding.

The bark of the dead stumps left here is almost all stained or burned to a deep blue-black.

More about the island, tomorrow.

Trail to Serendip

If I'd been paying attention, I never would have found it. I daydreamed myself into the wrong lane, got hemmed in by trucks, and was forced to turn right down a side street that, two blocks later, dead-ended at the river bank.

Campbell River, looking down towards the estuary.

I parked and went to look at the river. On my left, a wood fence shut off the view and access to the bank. On the right, blackberry canes and other weedy shrubs made another wall of sorts. But while I watched the river, a woman with a hiking stick and a backpack came along behind me and turned into a narrow gap in that wall. I followed her.

There was a path, narrow and muddy, hemmed in by weeds, but after a short walk, it broke through into an open space. There were benches, and a sign.

Myrt Thompson Trail. Home Depot off to the right.

The trail itself hadn't been improved; it remained narrow, half gravel, half mud, carved out only by foot traffic. I went on; the trail had to lead somewhere.

It follows the river bank, heading downstream, towards the estuary, an area that I had often looked at from Tyee Spit, but never found any way to get there. Now, in mid-winter, the vegetation is mainly weedy grass and, along the bank, alders and evergreens. Someone has planted a few new evergreens alongside the path; they look like they're struggling through their first winter.

The trail goes on and on, past old parking lots, (Where did those come from? Where is the access? Not on Google maps, for sure.) across a narrow wood bridge, onto a long spit barely a dozen metres across, with the trail down the centre. I met a few people; crossing a bridge, I had to press up tight against the side to allow them to pass.

Eagle landing. I think that's a crow on the tip of the tree on the right.

Red and yellow branches beside a bridge. Waiting for spring.

A narrow spit with a flock of sleeping mallards.

Nearer the river mouth, the water breaks up into a maze of back-channels, pools, and bays; mini-islands dot the area. In the main channel of the river, the current is strong, but here, the water lies quiet. Ducks dabble in the shallows or sleep in the sunshine. Overhead, high in the trees, eagles squeak, their calls sounding more like reluctant doors than like bird song. In the distance, I saw an osprey.

With the sun behind a hill, looking towards the town behind yet another islet. It's cold, and each house sends up its plume of smoke; I can smell wood burning, even from here.

After a time, the trail ends in a wood observation platform, looking across the estuary to Tyee Spit and the ocean beyond. But no, the trail hasn't ended, except in the planners' minds; the footpath takes off to the right, through a stand of alder, down a spit as narrow as the mallards' bedroom, to the very tip.

The river opens into the sea. Tyee Spit lies directly ahead, with the airplane hangars and offices on the right. On the left, industry on the far bank of the river.

I turned and went back. I still had errands to run before dark.

Moss between the path and the river, with afternoon shadows.

Near the beginning of the trail, an explanatory sign has been erected. Now, muddy and scratched, it is difficult to read. I took a photo and cleaned it up enough to decipher the information.

Part of the sign.

It tells of the restoration of Baikie Island, which had been an industrial site until recently; the area around it is still full of machinery and noise. At home, I looked it up on the web; it's not marked on Google maps; on the map version, not even the access road to Baikie Island is included. But I found some information on the Campbell River Parks site.

Baikie Island is the bit of land I had been watching across the river from the path I was on. I had poked around that area, and found no access to the shore, but it must be there, though there are no signs that I could find. (Like the unmarked Myrt Thompson Trail that I was on.)

Google maps. The Campbell River estuary. I have marked the MT Trail in red. It's a little over 1 km long. Baikie Island is the leaf-shaped land mass in the bay to the left.

The next day that the weather permits, I'll head over there and find the entrance.

A pair of eagles on a tree on Baikie Island.

Squiggles and divers

The sun shone today, all day. The snow melted. Birds sang in the trees. I went out without my jacket; looks like spring*!

In the calm, shallow water between the docks and the shore, a mixed flock of diving birds was fishing among squiggly reflections of fishing boat masts.

Bufflehead landing on squiggles

Same set of reflections, different bufflehead.

A quick stretch before the next dive.

Common goldeneye.

There were several courting couples among the goldeneyes. They get started on the nesting season early.

Looking almost straight down from the bank. The rocks are covered with barnacles and limpets. I saw a few orange starfish, but no crabs; they're all hiding from the birds.

Pacific loon. These stayed nearer the open water at the end of the docks.

*Can't trust Campbell River weather; they're promising us freezing rain for tomorrow. It's a good thing I got in a long, long walk this afternoon. And I found a new favourite spot! More on that tomorrow.