Jellies, red and white

The tide was just off the peak when I stopped at Oyster Bay this afternoon. There was no wind and the waves, barely there, nibbled at the high tide line. A fair number of jellies had come in with the tide, still fresh and whole after their mating dance, but ready to call it a day and stay on the shore when the water left.

Lion's mane jelly, Cyanea capillata. This one was just over 30 cm. across, measured against my shoe, but without stepping in the water.

Moon jelly, Aurelia labiata. About 12 cm. across.

Empty sea, empty sky. A quiet afternoon.

I walked down the shore to the breakwater, across the dunes, around the lagoon, over the meadow and through the little wood. There were birds; photos tomorrow. And in the little wood, mushrooms. It was starting to rain again, but I managed to get a few photos before the camera got too wet.

A Skywatch post

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuando llegué a Oyster Bay esta tarde, la marea estaba a su máximo. No había ni un soplo de viento, y el agua reposaba tranquilo. Las ondas, apenas mereciendo el nombre, unos pocos centímetros de agua, temblaban al tocar la arena. Un buen número de medusas habían llegado con la marea, todavía frescas y enteras después de sus actividades reproductivas, pero listas para dejarse secar en la playa cuando se va el agua.

1. Una medusa melena de león ártica, Cyanea capillata. Esta medía un poco más de 30 cm., medida con mi zapato, pero sin meterlo en el agua.
2. Medusa luna, Aurelia labiata. Mide unos 12 cm. de diámetro.
3. Todo quieto, todo tranquilo.

Caminé por la playa hasta el rompeolas, cruzé las dunas, di la vuelta a la laguna, pasé por el campo abierto y me interné en el bosquecito. Y había pájaros; mañana subo algunas foto. En el bosquecito había hongos; empezaba a llover ya, pero saqué algunas fotos mientras no se había mojado mucho la cámara.

Un poste de Skywatch; ve a mirar fotos de cielos alrededor del mundo.

Just mallards

 Mallards. Just mallards doing mallard things.

She looks pleased with herself; she won that fight!

Cheerful couple.

By the way; how do they do that? You try touching the back of your neck with your nose!

Quiet moment, with underwater grass at high tide.

Eating underwater grass

Synchronized swimming

Just mallards. That's enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Patos, ánades reales. Solo patos, haciendo cosas de patos.

Fotos:

1. Ella se ve muy contenta de sí misma, la vencedora de esta disputa.
2. Una pareja y una hembra con el pico escondido entre las plumas de la nuca.
3. Un momento tranquilo. Se ven las hierbas (terrestres, pero que toleran la sal) bajo el agua. La marea está a su máximo.
4. Un pato macho comiendo de esas hierbas.
5. Natación sincronizada.

Ánades reales; eso es todo.

The paths a worm makes

 Among the bits and pieces brought in by the recent high tides was a freshly-exposed chunk of teredo-drilled wood.

As found.

The tides had carried things much further inland than usual, abandoning this piece, along with bits of kelp and eelgrass, on top of a mulch of the dead leaves of the trees at the top of the dunes. And this wood has been freshly broken, exposing the wood inside, still ungreyed by weather and blown sand. 

Zooming into those holes. I love the way they expose the yearly layers of living wood.

The teredo "worm" is a species of clam that uses the clamshell on its front end to carve away at the wood that it eats. It coats its tunnel as it goes with a calcareous substance, soft inside the tunnel, but which hardens when exposed to air, leaving a white "shell" in some of the holes.

There's a piece of teredo-drilled wood on a shelf above my desk. The holes go mostly straight through, in one direction; tunnelling worms with a purpose in life. These holes, on the shore, go every which way, making pits as well as tunnels, following paths like those of a foraging deer.

On my desk. I see Shelob's spawn has moved in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Entre las cosas que trajeron las recientes mareas altas, hay un pedazo de madera talado por los gusanos de barco o "bromas" (que no son ninguna broma si te invade tu barco).

Foto: La madera entre el detritus en la playa.

Las mareas habían subido lo que traían mucho más arriba que lo normal, así que aquí las algas marinas y la hierba marina Zostera, tanto como el pedazo de madera, descansan sobre una mezcla de hojas caídas de los alisos que bordean la costa. Y esta madera recién se separó, y no ha cambiado todavía de color por la acción del tiempo y de la arena.

Foto: Haciendo zoom para mirar la madera fresca, mostrando las capas anuales de madera viva.

El "gusano" de barco no es un gusano, sino un género de almejas marinas, los Teredo. Usan sus conchas, muy pequeñas en la cabeza del animal, para talar la madera que le sirve de alimento. Cubre sus túneles mientras va con una sustancia a base de calcio, la cual es blanda pero que al contacto con el aire, se endurece dejando lo que parece una concha en algunos de sus agujeros.

Hay un pedazo viejo de madera perforada por estos animales en el estante de mi escritorio. (Foto abajo.) En éste, los túneles todos van en una sola dirección: gusanos con un propósito serio. Estos, en la playa, en cambio, van en todas direcciones, haciendo tanto túneles como pozos, siguiendo rutas como las de un venado en el bosque.

Foto: Los túneles en mi escritorio. Veo que unas arañitas se han establecido adentro.

Peaceful

The first of February. A sparkling day at Oyster Bay. And there were green-winged teals!.

High tide. Inside the breakwater, there's barely a ripple.

Green-winged teal male in breeding garb.

Courtship starts in the fall and peaks in January and February; they choose new partners each year. (All About Birds)

Against the light

Male and female.

Speeding right along, leaving an expanding wake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

El primero de febrero. Un dia brillante en la bahía, y con patos serranos, Anas carolinensis, vestidos para impresionar. Es la temporada cuando están escogiendo su pareja para este año.

Fotos:

1. Oyster Bay, con la marea alta. Protegida por el rompeolas, el agua apenas se mueve.
2. Un pato macho. Se conocen por la cabeza rojiza, con su franja verde y una linea blanca bajo el ojo. Las hembras y los patos jóvenes son vienen en colores pardo y crema.
3. Contra la luz.
4. Macho y hembra
5. Un macho distante, navegando rapidamente; deja una estela tras si.

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

A quibble

I must go down to the sea again,
To the lonely seas and the sky,
And all I ask is ...
(Apologies to John Masefield)

A dose of reality: that loneliness is deceptive. The sea has no space for loneliness. Under that apparently calm surface are teeming multitudes of busy lives.

And the sky; from here, we don't see the mobs of mosquitoes, flies, butterflies, ballooning spiders, and the like. The swallows see them though, and dart through the clouds collecting supper for the little ones.

I had gone down to the boat ramp to get new water for my aquarium. The day was cool and grey, welcome after a taste of summer; as I left, it was starting to rain. The tide was turning and everything, air and water and rocks, seemed momentarily in stasis.

One "lonely" crow.

But there were crabs and jellyfish in the water at the foot of the ramp, snails and barnacles on the rocks. And that crow is watching a quarrel, a horde, a squabbling, shrieking, greedy melee of gulls, fighting over the cat food I had just left at water's edge. (The cats had rejected it. I think they read the labels and refuse to taste anything other than the most expensive brands. But it was full of fish and chicken innards and ground corn and fish oils; ideal gull food. They had left all their perches on the rocks around to come to the party.)

A few seconds later, the crow joins the fun.

Fishing harbour seal, leaving the school to come and see what was going on on shore.

Every so often, out in the channel another black head would pop up. Harbour seals, following a school of fish. I counted four heads up at the same time: no telling how many were down there feasting.

One of the gulls on the boat ramp, taking a breather. The food's almost all gone, anyhow.

... And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

Can't argue with him there!

Orange sponge

If I could dive, I would. Beyond my reach, even at the lowest of low tides, the sea floor is a treasure house of amazing animals and plants. But I'm limited to shallow waters and tide pools.

And then again, there are those high, really high tides. And winter storms. And the waves bring me what I could never reach on my own.

I found another large sponge on the shore at Oyster Bay. This one is the largest I've seen yet, around 9 or 10 inches across, measured by my 7-inch finger span. And it was as yet partially unbleached by sun and sand.

One specimen, white where the light had hit it, orange where it was protected by seaweeds. On the red inner bark of an alder.

I have posted photos of these before, here and here. The larger was 7 inches across, and had been tossed in the sand until it was completely filled. I have it at home now, and after drying and shaking and shaking and banging about, it is still grey with sand. And the bit of orange colour on the underside has completely disappeared.

As far as I can see, it looks like the Orange Finger sponge, Neoesperiopsis rigida. These, according to my guide and a couple of websites, grow to 25 cm. (10 inches) tall. This one is a bit smaller, bottom to top.

I left this one on the shore near where I found it. My hands were already full of plastic pieces I was removing; I'd forgotten to bring a bag. I did bring home a large kelp holdfast, still fresh, for my hermit crabs. They've been working on it ever since, night and day.

Troubled water

It had been raining earlier, but now all that was left was a heavy cloud cover, shot with filtered sunbeams. I went down to the shore to see if I could get a photo of the dying light.

There was no wind, but the waves were high. They pounded the shore, rolling stones and logs.

A ways out, a flock of wigeons were resting, rising and falling with the waves. They were too far away to see clearly, except as a sprinkling of black dots.

I walked for an hour on the beach, listening to the roar and rumble of the stones, splashed with spray when a big wave came too close to my narrow path. As I returned to the car, I noticed a small flock of wigeons that had ventured closer to shore, close enough to be caught by the breaking waves.

They like sheltered water. They're asking for trouble here.

Wave coming.

Uh - oh!

Walking on water?

Wigeons in a blender

Flee!

"And we're outta here!"

Temporary quarters

This past week or so, the tides have been much higher than usual. The cormorants' accustomed hangout is underwater much of the time, so they've had to settle for a rock much closer to shore, near enough for me to see their feathers ruffle in the wind.

Cormorant rock, gull rock. No sharing!

Among the dozen pelagic cormorants, the one double-crested cormorant stands out; he's larger, and has a bright yellow bill and throat patch. The pelagics have thin necks, small beaks; their plumage, when the light is right, gleams with iridescent greens and purples.

Zooming in. The light was right.

High water at Oyster Bay

After the swan count this morning, I stopped by Oyster Bay to look at ducks. Last week, there was a flock of about four to five hundred; mixed mallards and wigeons, plus a variety of little peeps dashing about the tide flats, eating what looked and smelled like rotting muck. Delicious!

This week, the tide was higher than I ever remember seeing it here, and the breakwater that surrounds the lagoon and the tide flats was almost completely covered. A few birds still waited there for the water to recede.

Wigeons in flight, disturbed by my presence on the path above.

They make trails in the water as they leave.

At the tip of the remaining breakwater. Wigeons, pintails, mallards, peeps and a crow.

And one Canada goose.

Just a rock

In a new pile brought in to reinforce the seawall at Boundary Bay, where the high tides had found or forced a gap.

And the latest tide had already wrapped a mound of eelgrass around the bottom rock. This one is about half way up the pile, and some 4 feet long. Big stones!

A rescue and a rant

The tides are at their peak for the year in Boundary Bay, reaching to over 14 feet at high tide, in the middle of the day, and dropping to as low as 1.5 feet around midnight. Compare that, for example, to last July, when the high tide was around 12 feet, and the low just over 7. (And in the daytime, for our wading and exploring pleasure!)

The king tides occur when the Earth, Moon and Sun are aligned at perigee and perihelion, resulting in the largest tidal range seen over the course of a year. So tides are enhanced when the Earth is closest to the sun around January 2nd of each year. They are reduced when it is furthest from the sun, around July 2nd. (Wikipedia)

That's still not an extreme rise and drop, as tides go, but the water has to race in over a mile of flat beach, so the current is strong. Even on a calm day, the waves pound hard on the shore at the high tide line, bringing a load of vegetation, critters, driftwood, and unfortunately, junk with it, and then scouring the sand clean again, as the water roars back out.

A few days ago, at the boat ramp, a tangle of eelgrass was tumbling back and forth, just within the reach of the highest waves. And rolling with it was an unlucky hermit crab, caught without his shell, and unable to get his footing before each new wave caught him and tossed him back onto the cement. I waded in and caught him, and deposited him gently on the wet eelgrass in my bag. I couldn't find a shell for him, but he'd be safe there.

He was hiding under the eelgrass in the bag when we got home, and very jittery; I let him rest in a bowl under a piece of Turkish towel until I found him a selection of shells. A couple of hours later I transferred him, in his chosen shell, to the tank. And he immediately attacked the nearest hermit, a big, no-nonsense male twice his size, and wouldn't let go. I separated them, and he jumped on the next in line, and bullied her out of her shell, which he appropriated.

Not the mild, agreeable hermit behaviour I was used to seeing!

Put it down to panic. By the next morning, he was fitting in fine, sharing food, taking his turn, allowing others to ride on his back. He'd found his spot in the pecking order and all is well.

Other animals weren't quite so lucky. We found this dying nudibranch, still plump and glossy, dumped at the high tide line.

A mid-sized Melibe leonina, with her hood spread out, the teeth still firm at the rim. She's been eating something red or pink.

On the last two trips, I passed dead gulls. No, I didn't take photos; they were a disgusting mess. Maybe I should have. Because I was also collecting bags full of plastic, the stuff that kills seabirds.

There were the usual bottle caps, bits of broken toys, abandoned water bottles - "Pure Spring Water"! - one flip-flop (did the owner hop home?), and candy wrappers. Birds' guts end up full of that stuff; it looks bright and appetizing, and is swallowed too fast for them to realize it's inedible.

But what was worst was the plastic film, the transparent food wrap that, drifting in slow water, looks exactly like a lazy jellyfish. Appetizing, if you're a duck, or a gull. And deadly; it either chokes the bird outright, or clogs up his digestive system so that he can starve to death in the middle of a feast.

I got a full bag of that wrap, along with a few disposable gloves; their fingers fill with water and they wash to and fro, looking juicy. Sort of like that nudibranch above; about the same colour, too.

Why do people leave that sort of stuff on a beach?

A woman saw me dumping my load in a handy garbage container, (put there for that purpose, people!) and thanked me. Good; but wouldn't it be better if everyone put their junk in the barrels in the first place?

Tidewrack

With the tide at its maximum on Boundary Bay, I poked around in rolls of tangled eelgrass and under stones, and found nothing alive but a pair of barnacles broken off their rock. But the eelgrass had brought in many recently molted crab remains, their legs tied up in dripping green ribbons.

The waves and tide rip up tall eelgrass and create astonishingly complex knots with it.

"... the longer a string got, the greater the odds of knot formation became." From a study of the physics of knotted string, reported on Wired.

This little molt had been tossed up above the waves and was still intact.

Young molted crab, with sea lettuce. You can see, at the base of his carapace, where it separated to allow him to back out of his hard "skin".

I liked the rock he was on, too.

What makes that yucky-looking yellow foam? I'll explain tomorrow.

Mostly blue, almost wordless

Disappearing beach

Reflection in a car windshield

Blue water, with orange dog

Sea foam on the incoming tide

A Skywatch post

Wading in liquid glass

On Boundary Bay, the tide starts its descent in low gear. The beach slopes a bit here, and the bay has widened; the water drains from a circle over a mile across. Further out, the beach is almost flat, the area much less, and the current speeds up until it runs like a river.

We caught the noonday tide last Sunday at the top of its run and waded out with it. At low tide, on calm days, the water starting inward is fairly clear, but it's already carrying bits of weed from further out, and it scours the beach as it races in; by the time it reaches shore, it can be a thick soup of blackened eelgrass fragments and other muck. But then it sits for a few minutes, the gunk settles, and, if the wind hasn't whipped up the waves, the freshly cleaned water eases on out, as transparent as melted glass.

On a day like this, you can see the individual grains of sand under ankle-deep water.

Wormholes, a snail, and dwarf eelgrass (Zostera japonica) blades.

A snail trail, undisturbed by the flowing water.

And this dwarf eelgrass stands up around our legs, instead of lying down in a mat, as we usually see it.

A thick bed of eelgrass, under about 8 inches of water. Like an old-fashioned window, settled over many decades, the water distorts the view in spots.

A worm volcano, with its poop cap.

Clamshell and wave marks from our feet.

Hurry, hurry!

We caught up to this medium-sized crab on a bare patch that would be a sandbar a bit later on. He was heading leisurely out to shelter in the larger eelgrass beds, where the sand is softer and never dries out. Quite a ways to go, but there was time enough.

Laurie was trying to keep up with him and take his photo, but he kept moving away, so I got downstream of him, and stretched out a foot to slow him down. "Aha!" he thought; "Shelter from that horrible man!" and scuttled under my foot.

I could feel him, through my shoe sole, snuggle in cozily, relaxing, then suddenly realize his mistake. He jerked back, pushing upwards against the foot (just in case I might decide to stomp him into the sand), backed out, and raised his pincers in self defence, or possibly challenge.

Assessing his options. Flight or fight? Fight first!

And when my foot stayed put, and didn't attack, he lowered his pincers and ran out to sea.