Tied in knots

The tide was high, the wind brisk, the waves bouncy. The beach near Salmon Point was just a narrow strip of stones between the water and the rocks of the breakwater. I was there to look at eelgrass and kelp, torn from their roots and holdfasts, all tangled and tossed up by the waves.

Tangle of fresh bull kelp and eelgrass.

A knot like this is full of interest; teasing out separate strands, I find mostly eelgrass, rockweed, sea lettuce, and kelp, with occasional fragments of Turkish towel or washcloth, and maybe some spaghetti-like brown algae. Living on the blades of kelp are bryozoan colonies, sometimes, if I'm lucky and sharp-eyed enough, with their tiny cryptic nudibranchs. Any holdfasts that show up house miniature worms and immature snails, possibly a baby starfish.

The eelgrass carries snails and amphipods, sometimes a stray hermit crab. And in season, there are a variety of snail and nudibranch eggs, all doomed to be tossed onto the stones to die and be sundried. Some of the eelgrass crumbles and disappears; some remains as blackish heaps, leaping with sand hoppers. 

The kelp stipes hold their shape for a long time, bleaching to a greenish yellow. Crabs and hermits love to eat this when it ends up back in the water.

Eelgrass and sea lettuce. Green blobs in the waves themselves are sea lettuce washing in.

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La marea estaba a su máximo, la brisa algo fuerte, las olas caían en espuma sobre las piedras de la playa que ocupaban apenas unos metros entre el agua y el rompeolas de piedra. Yo estaba allí buscando hierba Zostera y quelpo, arrancados de sus raices y rizoides, hechos nudos y depositados por las olas sobre las piedras.

Primera foto: un nudo de quelpo Nereocystis luetkeana y de hierba Zostera en la playa cerca del Punto Salmón.

Un enredo como este tiene mucho de interés. Al separar cada hoja y estipe, encuentro en su mayor parte hierba Zostera, el quelpo, lechuga marina (Ulva sp.), sargaso vejigoso, con fragmentos de toalla turca, y otras algas pardas. En las hojas del quelpo viven colonias de briozoos, y a veces, si tengo suerte y los ojos no me fallan, con sus nudibranquios crípticos que comen los briozoos. Los rizoides que llegan al nudo protegen anélidos pequeñísimos y conchas marinas juveniles, y a veces una estrella de mar infantil.

La hierba Zostera marina lleva conchas marinas y anfípodos, y de vez en cuando un cangrejo ermitaño. En ciertas temporadas habrá huevos de varios nudibranquios y conchas marinas, todos destinados a morir sobre las piedras, tostarse en el sol, y o quedar como un montoncito de fibras negras donde saltan las pulgas de arena, o desmoronarse y desaparecer.

Los estipes del quelpo permanecen por largo tiempo, volviéndose suave y de un color amarillento. A los cangrejos y ermitaños les gusta comer esto, cuando por suerte cae otra vez en el agua.

Segunda foto: piedras, olas, y hierba Zostera. Las manchas oscuras dentro del agua son fragmentos de lechuga marina.

Lovey doveys

In my aquarium there are always a good number of snails, mostly the invasive Asian mud snail that now inhabits all our beaches, and whelks. In the last few weeks, a couple of tiny patterned snails has shown up. They wander about, on the glass, on the eelgrass, plowing along the surface of the sand, mostly together. Where one is, the other is usually nearby.

They are tiny! They may grow up to 1 cm. long. Here they rest between two whelks with an amphipod for company.

They probably arrived on a handful of eelgrass I brought home for the hermit crabs to climb on and clean up. They also hang out on kelp, but the kelp I brought home that week had been tossed well up on the beach and was dried out.

Alia carinata, the carinate dovesnail. The pattern of the shell is variable, the flesh and siphon mottled.

Zooming in.

The Asian mud snail, with amphipods. Compare the size; the amphipods are 1/3 to 1/2 the length of the dovesnails.

One of the whelks, with attendant amphipods and copepods.

Here he is again. The corner tape on the aquarium serves as a good ruler. It is 8 mm. wide. That makes this snail just under 5 cm. long, tip to tip.

I just passed the aquarium a minute ago. Both of the dovesnails were near the corner, a few millimetres apart.

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En mi acuario siempre hay un buen número de caracoles marinos, por la mayor parte el caracol invasor Batillaria attramentaria, que ahora se encuentra en toda la costa, los bucinos. En las últimas semanas, han aparecido unos caracoles muy pequeñitos, con conchas pintadas en café y crema. Andan de aquí para allá, en el vidrio, en la hierba Zostera, en la superficie de la arena, casi siempre juntos. Donde hay uno, el otro está cerca.

Fotos:

1. Aquí están entre dos bucinos y con un anfípodo. Son muy pequeños; los adultos pueden crecer hasta 1 cm. de largo. Probablemente llegaron entre un manojo de hierba marina que traje de la playa para mis ermitaños; les gusta treparse entre las hojas y comerse lo que crece allí. También estos caracoles se encuentran entre los quelpos, pero el quelpo que había traído a casa esa semana lo recogí en la parte superior de la playa y ya estaba seco.
2. Son el caracol paloma, Alia carinata. El diseño de la concha varía, y la carne y el sifón llevan manchas negras.
3. Haciendo zoom.
4. El caracol marino asiático de lodo, Batillaria attramentaria con anfípodos. Compara los tamaños; los caracolitos paloma miden de 2 a 3 veces el largo de un anfípodo
5. Uno de los bucinos, con sus anfípodos y copépodos.
6. Y otra foto del mismo bucino. La cinta que cierra la esquina del acuario sirve como regla. Mide 8 mm. de ancho. Eso marca este bucino a un poco menos de 5 cm. de largo.

Acabo de pasar por el acuario hace unos minutos. Los dos caracoles paloma estaban cerca de la esquina, separados apena por unos milímetros.

On a windy shore

The stretch of shoreline south of Salmon Point is always windy, even on the hottest, stillest days. In the winter, the wind howls so that it is impossible to hear what your companion on the trail is saying.

This tree shows the prevailing direction: north by northwest.

Looking east, across Georgia Strait to the mainland.

Rainy day in the slough, with distant birds

The weather is going to turn rough; they're saying we'll have winds up to 100 km/h today. For now, it's just raining.

Before the rain got going in earnest, I went down the Salmon Point/Woodhus Slough trail to look for mushrooms again, with no luck. But two flocks of trumpeter swans flew overhead, discussing the weather as they went. I forgot about mushrooms.

The second group. The first group was about 60 noisy swans strong.

Heading back, near sunset (but there was no sun), I took the summer trail along the slough floor; last chance, because the water is already rising, and it will soon be covered.

The water begins to rise. Last time I was here, this was dry. In mid-winter, the water will cover all the grasses and sedges.

Slough bottom, with rose hips.

Birds forage busily among the trees here, eating old berries and rotting fruit. I saw towhees, sparrows, juncos, chickadees, bouncing happily through the tangled branches, mostly too dark to see clearly on this dark, rainy afternoon.

Junco in a tree with lichen

The water will rise soon. The berries will drown. The small birds will move to higher ground. And the mallards will move in, eating the summer vegetation, as it rots underwater.

Silver and red

Driftwood and dying leaves, with fly.

Salmon Point trail.

I'm assuming that this piece of driftwood is from the root end of the log; only there is the wood so undecided as to which direction it wants to go. Where's the food? Where's the water? Above ground, the question is, "Where's the light?" and that's almost always straight up.

On a driftwood log

Three links in a food chain:

Clump of mushrooms growing out of a driftwood log.

Maybe four links: people felled the tree, possibly. Then the ocean carried it to Salmon Point and threw it onto the shore. Here, mushrooms are eating the wood. And something is enthusiastically eating the mushrooms; the bites look like those of slugs or snails.

I looked for the slugs, but they are usually night feeders, especially out in the open. I couldn't see any, nor any sleeping snails. The logs make good, sturdy roofs for slug bedrooms, down in the dark and damp.

Shy mushroom

Just one tiny, pale mushroom hiding behind a log.

Looks like it's been turned into a tent.