Things that Made me Happy this Year, part 4.

The list was done, the photos were sorted, the first three batches posted, the last batch ready to load. And then, there was another photo to process and tag on to the end. The year isn't over and there are always more things to make me happy.

These are a few smaller beasties that brightened my days this year.

It's always a good day when I find a hermit crab. This one's a Grainy Hand. July, Tyee Spit.

A rare moment when the sunshine reached a feather-duster tubeworm under the dock at Brown's Bay. April.

A lifer, and so unexpected! A homebody hermit, a female that lives in a tubeworm shell, while her mate wanders. Discorsopagurus schmitti. Discovery Passage Aquarium, July.

Also in the aquarium. I saw another of these unusual crabs 10 years ago.

After those years when all the starfish were dying, every one I see alive and healthy is pure joy.

Up to the moment. Yesterday I collected Douglas-fir cones to add to a bowl of Christmas ornaments. This miniature jumping spider came home with them. On iNaturalist, the sub-family (of the Salticidae) Dendryphantina has been suggested. Another new one for me.

There was an orange inchworm and a brown weevil in that bag of cones, too. I'm looking for an id. for these.

And a few hours from now, it's winter solstice. And the days will be getting longer again. Yay!

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La lists estaba completa, las fotos surtidas por sus categorías, las tres primeras categorías subidas al blog, y la última estaba preparada. Y inesperadamente había otra foto para añadir al final. Estamos todavía en 2025, y la vida siempre me trae otros encantos.

Estos son algunos de los animalitos pequeños que me alegraron los dias este año.

1. Cualquier dia en que encuentro un cangrejo hermitaño es un dia excelente. Este es un Pagurus granosimanus. Tyee Spit, julio.
2. Un momento insólito cuando los rayos del sol lograron penetrar debajo del muelle en Brown's Bay, iluminando un gusano plumero. Abril.
3. La primera vez que he visto uno de estos hermitaños sorprendentes.  Las hembras viven en tubos sésiles (fijos al sustrato) de gusanos; solamente los machos andan libres. Estas estaban en el acuario local en julio.
4. Y estos cangrejos los había visto solamente una vez, hace diez años. Petrolisthes eriomerus.
5. Después de esos años tristes cuando todas las estrellas de mar se estaban muriendo, ver una buena y sana es motivo de gozo.
6. Y llegando al momento presente. Ayer junté conos de abetos de Douglas pensando añadirlos a un adorno navideño. Con ellos vino esta arañita miniatura. En iNaturalist, se ha sugerido que pertenece la sub-familiaDendryphantina. Otra araña que nunca he visto antes.

También había una oruga anaranjada y un gorgojo, ambos, como la araña, minaturos. Todavía no encuentro una identificación para estos. 

Y en pocas horas, llegamos al solsticio de invierno. Y las horas de luz empiezan a aumentar.😊 

Under the donut shop

I took a short detour this afternoon, downtown, looping through a small dock area, peering between floats and under ramps.

Where the sun managed to reach, and where the waves stopped dancing, I caught a few glimpses of a vibrant community.

Plumose anemone, Metridium senile.

Back in the shade, there's a glassy bulb, possibly a tunicate. And a branch that may be a hydroid.

A small lion's mane jelly, Cyanea capillata

This was a youngster, only about a hands'-breadth across, and swimming actively, folding itself up, then opening again rhythmically.

Spreading out, heading under the wharf. With a green sea urchin.

On the bottom of a float (blue) and the pipes under a cabin.

So many critters! So many colours and shapes! I can't identify most of them, but there's a beautiful purplish feather-duster worm, limpets, orange and pink sponges, another plumose anemone, and something bright orange that may be the lips of a scallop.

And everywhere, there were tiny fish, breaking the surface so that it looked as if it were raining.

With the reflection of a donut shop.

Present, but too dark or too blurred by waves, hundreds of green sea urchins, mussels and barnacles, many orange starfish, a kelp crab and another two, too well hidden to identify, a fair number of chitons. And a kid fishing for shrimp. Who scared them all away.

Oh, and a big seal. Photos tomorrow.

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Tomé un desvío corto esta tarde. Pasando por el centro, di una vuelta por un pequeño muelle, buscando entre los flotadores y debajo de las rampas. Donde alcanzaba la luz del sol, y donde las olas dejaban de bailar, llegué a ver señas de una comunidad vibrante.

Fotos:

1.  Una anémona plumosa, Metridium senile. En la sombra hay algo que parece un foco; posiblemente sea un tunicado. Y lo que parece una rama de árbol puede ser un hidroide.

2. Una medusa melena de león, Cyanaea capillata. Muy chica aun; apenas medía unos 10 cm. Iba nadando, estirándose y encogiéndose repetidamente.

3. Aquí está estirada. Con un erizo de mar verde.

4. Debajo de un flotador (azul) y en la tubería debajo de una cabaña. ¡Tantas criaturas! ¡Y de tantos colores y formas! No puedo identificar la mayor parte de ellas, pero se ve un gusano plumero color mora, lapas, esponjas anaranjadas y color de rosa, otra anémona plumosa, y algo anaranjado brillante que posiblemente sean los labios de una vieira.

5. Y dondequiera había un banco de pececitos, tocando la superficie del agua hasta que parecía que estaba lloviendo. Aquí están unos con los reflejos de una tienda de donas.

También hubo, pero escondidos en lo oscuro, o borrosos bajo las olas, cientos de erizos de mar verdes, mejillones y bálanos, muchas estrellas de mar anaranjadas, un cangrejo "kelp" y otros dos, sin poderlos identificar por estar bien escondidas, y bastantes quitones. Y un muchacho que pescaba camarones. Los cuales se habían hecho escasos.

Y también una foca grande. Mañana subo las fotos.

Under the wharf, it's spring.

The tide was low, the sun was shining, and there was no wind; the perfect time to visit the docks and peer underneath the floats again. The water was smooth and clear, exposing the communities clustered along pipes and logs.

This year, or maybe this time of year, the sea urchins were out in full force. I hadn't seen them here before.

Under a floating office. Green sea urchins, about a couple of inches across.

More urchins, several scallops encrusted with weeds and worms, barnacles and a feather-duster worm, on a plastic pipe under the ramp.

A rusty pipe and a rope underneath the ramp. Sea urchins again, purple and beige feather duster worms, a red sponge (on the whitish pipe on the left) and a larger, greyish sponge. On the far left, a mass of tubeworms. At the top right, a brilliant red feather duster.

There were several masses of jelly, probably egg masses. This one was on a piling partly exposed by the low tide. I touched it; it was soft, but firm, not sticky.

This was down on the bottom, underneath a float. It's about a hand's width across. An anemone, but not one I recognize.

I have visited the docks several times during the winter, peering down the gaps between pilings, squinting between logs. All I have seen in the water were fish, maybe because of the lack of light, or possibly some of the summer residents have retreated to more sheltered locations. I'm glad to see the crowds coming back.

Just plain lucky

If I hadn't been looking at tidepool sculpins. If I hadn't gotten down on my elbows and knees to see the big plumose anemone under the rock in the sculpins' pool. If the sun hadn't angled in at just that moment; I would have passed these by without noticing.

Feather duster worms, on the underside of a huge rock, at the top of the tide pool.

These are big worms, well over an inch wide at the crown. There are hints of others farther back, where the sun hasn't reached; they look almost purplish-black.

Two tubes at the far end, with a few more deeper down, in the shade.

 I touched one tube; the worm in it disappeared instantly and didn't reappear while I waited.

About half of the visible worms were striped; the rest were dark red.

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.

Serendipitous miniature

Squinting through the microscope at a new centre of activity in the aquarium - story tomorrow - my tired hand slipped down, and I discovered two feather-duster worms in the sand.

The taller of the two. Still too small to see without a lens.

And there are two tinier critters caught in its tentacles, as they dashed around feeding on something even smaller.

Of feather dusters and their fashion choices.

The tide was about a quarter of the way out at Boundary Bay a few days ago; good for a daytime tide this time of year. (It will be nice and low next week, but around 11:00 PM, too late, too cold, too dark for beachcombing.)

I was looking for goodies to take home to my hermits; the winter haul, up near the shore, is usually mostly torn eelgrass, with a few shreds of sea lettuce. This time, they were lucky. The eelgrass was plentiful and whole, with roots;  the sea lettuce came in big sheets. And we found a couple of full-size blades of Turkish towel.

The critters are happy now, climbing all over their green and red jungle gym, swinging in the current, nibbling at fluff on the limpets.

I shook out the eelgrass and sea lettuce before I bagged it up, but it still came home with passengers: 9 hermits, umpteen limpets, 5 green flatworms, several scaleworms and many small green ribbon worms. And a dance troupe of skeleton shrimp, which I've been trying to take photos of without disturbing them; they are so fragile!

A couple of smaller worms turned up in the water I'd washed the seaweeds in:

Feather-duster worm.

The bowl it's in is 2 cm. across, so this worm is about 3 cm. long. When I caught it, it was bare, but as soon as it touched a bit of sand it knitted itself a scarf.

Not a bit shy, even when I brushed some of its sand away; it still kept fanning the water, feeding.

The second worm, a bit smaller, showing the pointed tail. This one wears a sand collar, too.

When I dropped these in the tank, they quickly buried themselves up to the neck in the sand, leaving only the feathery top visible.

I found a few of these back in August, 2010. One was much redder than these, but otherwise the same. Some of these feather-duster worms have eyes on the tentacles, up to 1000 pairs of eyes; I couldn't see any here, unless those white spots on the back of the tentacles in the first photo are eyespots. In one of my other photos, the same spots show up looking greenish.

Cleanup crew under the dock. And a few stars.

At the Discovery Harbour Marina* in Campbell River, we divided our time between looking at boats and reflections and peering into the depths of the murky water, looking for life. In spite of the bright sunlight, or maybe because of it, since it highlighted all the dust and floaters on the surface, it was almost impossible to see more than a few metres down, so most of what we saw was in the narrow gap between the first dock and the shore.

I cleaned most of the bright surface interference off these photos, and adjusted the contrast to make things more visible.

The largest sea cucumber I have ever seen. I estimated it at about a foot and a half long. An inoffensive scavenger, busy vaccuming the rocks.

In the corner between two docks at right angles, the chains were draped with huge seaweeds colonized by many different animals. I think those red sprays are feather duster tubeworms. The yellow mass is a sponge. I don't know what the white blobs are.

Leather star. This starfish eats sponges, anemones, and sea cucumbers. To the left, barely visible, is a good-sized kelp crab.

Two small sunflower stars.

A medium-sized sunflower star. We saw a much larger one, but it was too deep for a decent photo. I counted over 20 arms on the visible part of the star, about 3/4 of the whole. This one would have about 15.

The sunflower stars are major predators. A man who passed us as we were looking at the largest one, angrily called them oyster pirates. They eat any invertebrate they can find, including other starfish, although their favourite foods are sea urchins and bivalves (clams, etc.). We didn't see any sea urchins this trip, but plenty of sunflower stars.

*K Dock, just past Moxie's.