Where the sun shines

It was a good day for it; sunny and bright, not a cloud in the sky; perfect lighting for peering under docks to see what's living there now. Unfortunately, when I got to Brown's Bay, there was a brisk wind and the water was dancing and painting abstract patterns. And maintenance had scraped whole communities off the floats. (Necessary, and some critters can relocate, but I wish ...) There were still a few sheltered spots; I found them.

Giant plumose anemones on a pipe with an unusual pink tinge.

On the wooden base of a float; plumose anemone, green sea urchins and a jelly swimming by.

Most feather duster tube worms look purmplish in their shadowy underwater homes. This one caught an unusually bright ray of light. The yellow is probably a sponge.

Group of feather duster worms, Eudistylia vancouveri.One shows up red.

A winged kelp with a pronounced stipe, Alaria marginata. In the upper part of the photo, they're attached to the dock base; underneath, they float free. They grow up to 3 metres long.

Harbour seal, Phoca vitulina. There were three of them this day, just hanging around waiting for fisher folk to come back with their catch.

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Era un dia ideal para sacar fotos de criaturas debajo de los muelles; asoleado, brillante, el cielo azul, sin  nubes; se necesita buena luz para ver claro esas comunidades acuáticas. Lástima fue que cuando llegué a Brown's Bay, se había levantado una brisa fuerte, haciendo bailar las olas, pintando diseños abstractos. Además, los encargados del mantenimiento del sitio habían limpiado los flotadores. Algo necesario en una marina, y muchos de los organismos se pueden encontrar albergue en las rocas, pero una lástima de todas maneras.

Pero buscando, buscando, encontré unos pocos sitios protegidos.

1. Anémonas Metridium senile, en un tubo. El tinte color de rosa no lo he visto antes.
2. En la madera debajo de un muelle, vi otra anémona blanca y un par de erizos verdes de mar. Una pequeña medusa pasaba, nadando lentamente.
3. Los gusanos tubícolas normalmente parecen ser oscuros, en tonos de color púrpura, sobre todo en las oscuridades donde viven. Un rayo fuerte de luz solar iluminó este, mostrando su fuerte color rojo. Lo amarillo probablemente sea una esponja.
4. Un grupo de estos gusanos, Eudistylia vancouveri.
5. Algas marinas, quelpos de doble alas, Alaria marginata. En la parte superior de la foto, están adheridas a la base del muelle; abajo, flotan libremente. Estas algas llegan a unos 3 metros desde su base.
6. Una foca, Phoca vitulina. Había tres este dia, dando vueltas perezosamente, esperando que regresaran los pescadores con las cabezas y entrañas que desecharán al limpiar su pesca del dia en el sitio proveído en el muelle para esta tarea.

These made me happy, Part 3.

 Again, I'm looking through my "Things that make me Happy" folder. 

I didn't know the title of this poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, and just found it now, looking up the quote.

Happy Thought

The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

Anyhow, here's today's batch of photos, again in no particular order.

Rotten pilings, Oyster Bay tidal lagoon at low tide.

New pickleweed, Salicornia pacifica, on the Oyster Bay breakwater.

Reflections: a tiny anemone at the corner of my aquarium, reflected doubly in the surface of the water and the adjacent wall.

Just a rock, tumbled down from a cliff beside Buttle Lake, exposing its white "innards".

An old Ford, rusting away.

The baby monkey tree outside my window, under fresh snow.

Woodpecker snag. There are faces in those holes! Trapped dryads?

Cedar bark, branch tips, and cone, and my winter gloved fingers. Tyee Spit.

That's all for now; tomorrow I'll go on to look at lichens and moss. But I'll come back to this folder from time to time, now that it has a proper name and location on my hard drive.

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Otra vez con la carpeta de cosas que me hacen feliz.

El poeta Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) lo dijo en un pequeño poema de dos lineas, al que le dió el título de "Pensamiento Feliz":

"El mundo está tan lleno de tantas cosas,

Yo sé que todos seremos felices como los reyes."

Bueno, aquí están las fotos de hoy, desorganizadas como siempre.

1. Pilotes viejísimos de un muelle ya bien desaparecido en la laguna mareal de Oyster Bay.
2. Brotes nuevos de Salicornia pacifica, planta que crece donde le llega a cubrir agua salada de vez en cuando. En el rompeolas de Oyster Bay.
3. Reflejos. Una anémona en mi acuario, reflejada en la superficie del agua, y también en la pared que se une a la suya.
4. Una roca cualquiera, caída del precipicio al lado de Buttle Lake, rota y mostrando su relleno blanco.
5. Un Ford antiguo, oxidándose lentamente al lado del bosque.
6. Mi pequeño piñonero (pehuén, Araucaria araucana, árbol nativo a Chile) bajo nieve recién caída.
7. Un tronco excavado por los pájaros carpinteros. Dentro de las excavaciones se ven caras. ¿Serán dríades?
8. Cedro: corteza, ramitas y cono. Y mis dedos en guantes por el frio.

Y eso es todo por ahora: mañana vuelvo a mirar líquenes y musgos. Pero volveré a esta carpeta de vez en vez, ya que ahora tiene su nombre y su sitio en mi computadora.

 

Shy sand dwellers

 When I arrived at Stories Beach, the tide was on its way down. I followed it as it went, walking along the edge of the water, peering under and behind rocks, staring into tide pools to watch tiny fish, counting whelks and starfish...

A girl asked me about the circles she saw in the sand; squishy circles, just sand, but it sunk away from her finger when she touched them. Anemones. There are two common species on this shore that do this, hiding away when the water drops.

Pink-tipped green anemone, Anthopleura elegantissima.

I often see these, crowds of them, in sandstone, where they dig themselves a hole. At low tide, they look like pock marks on the stone; as soon as the water covers them again, they spread out their pink tentacles.

In the photo there are also a couple of hairy hermit crabs in periwinkle shells. And a limpet: there are always limpets.

Burrowing anemone, Anthopleura artemisia.

The other anemone that retreats under the sand on this beach is the burrowing anemone. This one lives in sand, especially near rocks. Sometimes they hide themselves completely; sometimes they still wave the tentacles about as long as they're wet. It depends. On their mood, maybe?

The burrowing anemones come in a variety of colours. There are at least 7 in this photo.

Also in the photo, look for the tube worm's tube with a drop of water on the tip. The other pinkish projections from the sand could be algae; I should have dug one up to see.

A small burrowing anemone, in a vivid lime-green.

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Cuando llegué a la playa, la marea ya bajaba. La seguí, caminando al borde del agua mientras se alejaba, mirando debajo y alrededor de las rocas, deteniéndome para observar las peces en las pozas de marea, contando caracoles marinos y estrellas de mar...

Una muchacha me preguntó acerca de los pocitos de arena que encontraba; círculos de arena que respondían cuando los tocaba, retrayéndose aun más en la arena. Anémonas, le dije. Hay dos especies de anémona en esta playa que se esconden cuando el agua huye.

Primera foto: Una anémona agregante, Anthopleura elegantissima.

Veo estas frecuentemente; multitudes, colonias enteras. Se excavan hoyos en la arenisca, una piedra muy suave. Cuando la marea está baja, estos hoyos parecen cráteres miniaturas llenas de arena; cuando regresa el agua, vuelven a extender sus tentáculos color de rosa.

En esta foto también hay dos cangrejos ermitaños "peludos", Pagurus hirsutiusculus. Y una lapa. Siempre hay lapas.

Fotos 2 a 4: Anémonas excavadoras, Anthopleura artemisia.

La segunda anémona que se esconde bajo la arena es la anémona excavadora. Esta vive en la arena, generalmente cerca de las rocas. A veces se esconden completamente cuando la marea baja; a veces mantienen los tentáculos al descubierto, mientras todavía permanecen húmedos. Todo depende. De su idea al momento, parece.

Vienen en una variedad de colores, desde un gris algo roseáceo hasta verde o anaranjado. La anémona chica en la última foto es lo más verde que he visto.

En la tercera foto también se ve un gusano de tubo, alzado sobre la arena, con una gota de agua encima. Hay por lo menos 7 anémonas en la foto. Las otras cosas que sobresalen de la arena pueden ser algas; no se me ocurrió desenterrar una para ver si así era.

Pink shirt, big mouths, and notes on anemone diets

These are the last of the aquarium pics. For now; the next rainy day, I'll be staring at the glass wall again.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, wearing a pink polka-dot shirt.

One of the limpets, busy eating.

I need to get a new aquarium; all the climbers with shells, the limpets and hermits and snails have scratched the glass from top to bottom over the years, so that I spend too much time deleting scratches from the photos and have given up entirely on the backgrounds. An automatic "remove dust and scratches" helps, but it removes the context.

Another limpet mouth. The spiral tube on the right is his gills.

The plumose anemone, Metridium senile on the far side of the tank.

This anemone was given to me by fellow blogger Tim at Boundary Bay, some 5 years ago. She was doing ok, then not so well, then really not so happy. She spent a lot of her time sulking, and instead of growing, she shrunk. I worried and hand-fed her; it didn't seem to help. Then I read that these anemones need kelp in their diet. I've been bringing home pieces of kelp and allowing them to disintegrate in the tank. And now she stays open most of the time, and she's growing again. I'm happy, she's happy.

And the crabs like the disintegrating kelp, too. Yay!

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Estas son las últimas fotos recientes de los residentes del acuario. Por ahora; en cuanto vuelve a llover, me pasaré horas mirando las paredes de vidrio otra vez.

Primero, un ermitaño peludo, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, llevando una camisa roja con puntitos.

Luego, dos lapas, comiendo. En la segunda, se le ve la branquia, ese tubo en espiral al lado derecho.

(Nota: tendré que comprar un tanque nuevo; los animales con sus conchas duras han hecho tantas rayas en el vidrio que me tengo que pasar mucho tiempo borrándolas de las fotos.)

Y una anémona plumosa, Metridium senile, al otro lado del tanque. Esta anémona me la dió un amigo hace como unos cinco años. Es de Boundary Bay. Al principio andaba bien, crecía y comía, pero con el tiempo no estaba tan bien, y luego se puso muy triste. Se pasaba la mayor parte del tiempo encogida, aplastada. Dejó de crecer, y luego hasta se contrajo. Traté de ayudarla, dándole de comer con la mano, pero no parecía tener efecto. Recientemente, leí que estas anémonas necesitan el alga kelp en su dieta. Empecé a traer pedazos de kelp a casa, y los he dejado desbaratarse en el tanque. Y ahora mi pobre anémona se queda abierta casi todo el tiempo, come y está creciendo otra vez. Está contenta: yo también.

Y a los cangrejos les gusta el kelp viejo, también. ¡Bravo!

Waiting

Caught in passing in the aquarium:

Orange-striped green anemone on eelgrass

... while I was waiting for a worm.

(Something has gone wrong with Blogger; it took half an hour just to add one photo. I'll deal with the worm tomorrow.)

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Visto al pasar, mientras esperaba que apareciera un anélido.

(Algo anda mal con Blogger: se tomó media hora para subir una sola foto. Dejaré el anélido hasta mañana.)

Over-exposed

At low tide on the open sandy areas north of Oyster Bay, almost all that can be seen are the sand dollars. Underneath ( I dug down) there are more sand dollars. Many more. And the occasional clam.

One of the sand dollars. To my naked eye, the live ones looked black, but the camera saw the red colour.

The exposed sand dollars were all waving their spines, trying to bury themselves in the sand as the water receded. They look helpless, but they're quite efficient diggers.

And one lonely crab molt.

Coming up to the ship graveyard, the sand dollars peter out, and other critters show up.

One of the old ships innards, draped with sea lettuce.

Those round lumps in the sand? Sand dollars, sheltering. Every few steps I could feel one crack under my foot. Sorry, guys!

Beside the ship above, I found this unhappy Opalescent nudibranch, Hermissenda opalescens. Also a worm poop.

The very low tides can be hard on creatures from the lower intertidal zones. Out of the water, those rusty iron ship bones get hot. I found a couple of limpets belly up in the heat beside this boat. I brought them home wrapped in cool, damp sea lettuce: one survived and is now cleaning the wall in my tank.

And this nudibranch was moving sluggishly, out exposed on warm sand. I took a few photos, then covered it with several layers of wet sea lettuce.

Orange starfish, with one new arm.

I found green anemones, a pink anemone, a very red one (mostly buried, keeping away from the sun), and this orangey one, under a couple of inches of water. A hermit crab is sheltering under its shadow.

A row of whelks, closed down to preserve moisture. The sea lettuce here is still wet, and if you look closely, you'll see a green anemone (or is it two?) still open for business.

Starfish can move quickly when they want. On the far side of the boat, I saw a big purple starfish. By the time I went around to that side, having to go up onto the headland to dodge shoe-eating mud, I couldn't find the star anywhere. It had probably buried itself under the sand; starfish don't like sunshine.

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Cuando la marea está baja, en la playa arenosa al norte de Oyster Bay, todo lo que se ve son los dólares de arena. Y debajo de la arena (excavé varios hoyos) lo que se encuentra son más dólares. Y una que otra almeja grande.

Los dólares de arena vivos se ven, a mis ojos, negros. Pero la cámara ve el color rojizo. Todos los vivos estaban agitando las espinas, tratando de enterrarse bajo la arena, fuera del alcance de los rayos del sol. Parecen no tener defensas, pero son capaces de desaparecer en pocos minutos.

Un cangrejo había dejado su muda de carapacho. Al tostarse se hace más rojo.

Estas mareas bajas son un episodio difícil para muchos animales de la zona baja; no toleran el sol. Y junto a los barcos viejos, que normalmente proveen habitat para muchos, ahora se siente el calor; los fierros viejos se secan y se hacen un hornito. Al lado de este barco, encontré dos lapas boca arriba, lo que no se ve si están sanos. Me los traje a casa envueltos en un poco de alga marina húmeda; una sobrevivió y ahora está felizmente limpiando la pared de mi acuario.

Y un nudibranquo, Hermissenda opalescens, sufría en la arena; apenas se movía ya. Le saqué unas fotos y luego la cubrí de varias capas de algae.

Luego había una estrella de mar anaranjada, con una pata nueva.

Y una anémona anaranjada en un poco de agua. Un ermitaño se estaba escondiendo en su sombra.

Vi anémonas verdes, color de rosa, y una de un rojo muy fuerte, casi por completo enterrada en la arena, escondiéndose del sol asesino.

Junto a los caracoles hay una anémona verde escondida entre la alga.

Las estrellas de mar se pueden mover muy rapidamente si quieren. Vi una grande, morada, al otro lado del barco. Pero cuando fui a verla, después de tener que dar toda la vuelta para evitar el lodo comezapatos, no la encontré en ninguna parte. Se habrá enterrada ya; a las estrellas de mar no les gusta el calor.

Elusive anemone

For about 7 years, an old abalone shell, purchased in a garage sale years before, has been a fixture in my saltwater aquarium. At first, it was a place for hermit crabs to stand tall and watch the world go by. Later, crabs found the inner surface to be a good hiding place. Now, the plumose anemone calls it home.

Over the years, it has lost its pearly sheen; it is gradually dissolving, and one side has a great hole, crumbling at the edges. The outer part of the shell is riddled with pores, each one housing a tiny, two-tentacled worm. Limpets browse among them, hermits pick their way across, on their way to the eelgrass bed and climbing ground.

One of the worms, a Siponid. The tentacles are, at most, 5 mm. long.

A couple of years ago, I noticed several miniature anemone-like critters, extremely small, almost invisible unless the light was just right, on the shell. They have a circle of a few tentacles, a dozen to twenty-something, with alternating clear and white patches. The column is never clearly visible.

I've watched them, always under bright light, with a lens; with the naked eye they're barely there. Tonight, with all the lights on and a bright flashlight, I spent 15 minutes examining their favourite spots before I found one.

They seem to move about; I see four or five in one spot, and watch them for a few days, and then can't find them. Later, they show up in another area, but always on the abalone shell. I've never seen one anywhere else. I've looked.

And I've tried, over and over, to get a photo; they're even more elusive under a flash. But the other day, with the abalone shell a mere inch from the glass, a couple showed up clearly.

Mini-anemones, with two-tentacled worm in background. Approximate size, maybe 1 cm. across, tentacle tip to tip. They never get any bigger than this. Contrast increased slightly.

I can't find these in my Encyclopedia, nor in any website; they're too small to be noticed, maybe. They should be easy to identify (more or less) by the size, the limited number of tentacles, and the white spots, so I've browsed hundreds of photos, but without seeing any.

(I found a similar one, here, towards the bottom of the page, also unidentified.)

Nose to the glass

A few random aquarium shots, taken while I waited for a hermit to try on a new shell.

"First dibs!"

Very small crab, just outside his present burrow underneath an oyster.

These crabs always amaze me. I knew he was digging under the oyster before he appeared at his front door, because the whole oyster was bouncing up and down. And the oyster is at least 10 times his length and width, thick and solid. And yet, the crab, standing on his tippy-toes, bounces the whole thing on his back.

I weighed a rock that a crab lifted a couple of years ago; the rock was at least 100 times the crab's weight!

Tiny hermit in an unusual shell. It looks like two broken shells cemented together.

In the second-hand shop, looking over used shells. Someone chose the polka-dot one, and is wearing it today.

Val, festooned as usual, with broken shells and a red algae scarf.

Barnacle eater, looking for the barnacle patch after I moved it. A channelled dogwinkle, probably. The shell is a deep, purplish blue.

Algae-eating snails, like the mud snails and the limpets, move along the glass, their jaws moving rhythmically, cleaning off microscopic algae as they go. Looking closely, I can even see the radula, the belt of tiny teeth inside the mouth.

These predatory snails just hurry about their business; their mouth is never seen on the glass. When they reach a barnacle, they extend a proboscis with the scraping radula* on its tip, bore through the barnacle's shell, inject digestive juices, and then suck out the semi-liquid mess. From an observer's point of view, all that can be seen is a snail stuck on a barnacle, and then later, an empty barnacle shell.

*Microscopic photos and diagrams of this can be found on A Snail's Odyssey.

Shifting shapes

The many shapes of intertidal beasties.

Long and twisty:

Long-armed brittle star, Amphiodia occidentalis. Aka snaky-armed brittle star. Disturbed in sand or mud, they stretch out and twist out of sight, gone in seconds. In my hand, they curl and twist into a knot. This one hadn't decided whether to go left or right.

Tubeworms, hiding from the light.

Saddleback gunnel. Accompanied by another of those kelp crabs with a sea lettuce hat.

Round and spiky:

Green sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis. (That name's a bit of a tongue-twister, isn't it?) Topside. Those spines are in constant motion.

When I was a kid, someone told me that sea urchins were good to eat. You just broke one in half, and ate it, raw, on the half-test. With a spoon.

I had to try it. I brought home a green sea urchin from the beach, cracked it down the middle, and tasted it. Not bad. I took another bite, and another. And while I spooned out that first half, the second half walked itself across the counter and dropped to the floor.

That did it. I apologized to the urchin and returned it to the beach. I never ate another.

Sea urchin underside, showing the mouth.

Mouth open, showing off his five teeth.

Blobby shape-shifters:

Pink-tipped green anemone, Anthopleura elegantissima, half-way between the ball form and the flower shape.

Compact and round:

Probably a stubby isopod, Gnorimosphaeroma oregonensis. Also a shape-shifter; they curl up into a ball and roll away when I touch them.

All of these were in the mid-tidal zone, 50th parallel north.

Under-rock assortment

You can't flip just one. It's hard to stop at one hundred; I don't know if I could, if it weren't for the tide coming in.

Flipping rocks at low tide. Each one hides another treasure. And I stand up, holding my back and groaning, and tell myself it's time to quit. But there's a likely-looking rock in front of me. And another over there; and another ...

So here I am, a week later, still sorting photos of the one session on the beach. And the low tides in mid-afternoon are still beckoning.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of the remaining photos of under-rock critters.

Black prickleback, black blenny, Xiphister atropurpureus. The black bands with white edging behind the eyes identify it. The Rock prickleback has the same bands, but the edging is dark, the centres light.

A tiny northern clingfish, caught in a clamshell. Gobiesox maendricus.

Nudibranch egg ribbon. I'm not sure which nudibranch laid them.

Baby grainy hand hermit, in a broken baby moon snail shell.

Another grainy hand. The legs are a clear yellow when they're small.

Pink-tipped green anemone. And I think that's a nudibranch near the centre top, under the seaweed.

Unidentified chiton. This was one of a group almost hidden in the mud in a tidepool full of floating seaweed fragments. The largest was a bit over an inch long.

Another unidentified nudibranch, half-hidden under a rock and not seen until I examined my photos.

Seaweeds floating in the tide.

More goodies tomorrow. And then, a day trip to Mitlenatch Island. And a video or two. I'll never catch up!