Where there was nothing ...

 I'm going to start here with a modified map.

Google map.

This is the inner pond of Oyster Bay. When I first saw it, in 2009, the area I have tinted pink was not there; the land ended at the tip of the breakwater and the pond was open to the sea. Year by year, tide and storms have brought in sand and pebbles and even fist-sized stones to build a long arm that now almost reaches the shore at low tide. Logs have piled up on the top, at high tide level, and I noticed this week that uprooted kelp and other seaweeds are starting to accumulate on the outer edge.

And where back in 2009, there was just plain sand, now there's a thriving patch of pickleweed. It's starting to spread onto the new spit, too.

Pickleweed, aka  glasswort, sea beans, sea asparagus ... Salicornia depressa.

Green stems, turning pink.

These are flowering plants: the leaves are tightly attached to the stem, making them look jointed. And the flowers at the tip are tiny and mostly hidden by the bracts, also closely wrapped around the stem.

The tips turn red towards the end of summer.

Pickleweed is salt-tolerant; at high tide, these plants are sometimes within reach of the waves. The plant filters out the salt from the water and stores it in specialized vacuoles; when they become too saturated, they drop off. 

The names it has collected: pickleweed, sea beans, sea asparagus: remind us that it's edible. Fresh, right off the plant, or lightly boiled, or pickled. I picked a handful of green and pink tips, washed them well and scalded them lightly. They were still crunchy, and very salty. A nice nibbling snack, or they'd make a good addition to a salad.

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Empiezo con un mapa de Google, modificado.

1. Esta es la laguna en el extremo de la Bahía Oyster. Cuando la vi por primera vez, en el año 2009, el area que he marcado con color de rosa no existía. La tierra terminaba donde acaba el rompeolas, y lo que es la laguna ahora estaba completamente abierto. Año tras año, las mareas y las tempestades han traído arena y piedritas y hasta piedras del tamaño de un puño para construir una lengua de tierra larga que ahora casi llega a tocar la playa opuesta a bajamar. Troncos flotantes se han amonotonado encima, al nivel de altamar, y esta semana vi que algas marinas muertas se empiezan a acumular en el lado expuesto a las olas.
2. Y donde en 2009 había solamente arena, ahora hay un jardín floreciente de Salicornia. Y ya empieza a extenderse sobre la nueva lengua de tierra.
3. Salicornia depressa.
4. Empieza a volverse roja hacia el final del verano.

Estas son plantas que producen flores; las hojas se adhieren fuertemente a los tallos, haciéndolos aparecer segmentados. Y hacia el extremo del tallo, las flores son pequeñas y casi completamente escondidas tras las brácteas, que también encierran el tallo.

Salicornia es una planta halófita, o sea, que tolera la sal. A marea alta, estas plantas pueden estar al alcance de las olas. La planta separa la sal del agua y la almacena en vacuolas especializadas; cuando la concentración de sal llega a cierto nivel, estas vacuolas se mueren y caen al suelo. 

Es comestible; de allí los nombres que recibe en inglés: frijoles de mar, espárragos, etc. Se puede comer fresca, al cortarla de la planta, o se puede hervir ligeramente; también se puede preservar en vinagre. Yo corté un manojo de tallos, verdes y rojos, los lavé y herví brevemente. Seguían crujientes, y muy salados. Un buen bocadillo, o quedarían bien en una ensalada verde.

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.

 

Salt lovers

At Oyster Bay, water currents, over the last 5 years or so, have built up a long spit at right angles to the breakwater, gravelly on the higher portions, pure sand at the inner edge.

The new spit almost encloses the bay (to the left). At the lowest tide, it is almost possible to walk to the mainland from here.

The spit, so far, is almost barren of plant life, but at the upper end, a healthy population of pickleweed is settling in happily.

Pickleweed, aka glasswort, sea aparagus, samphire, Salicornia pacifica.

Pickleweed is a halophyte, a salt plant.

The word derives from Ancient Greek ἅλας (halas) 'salt' and φυτόν (phyton) 'plant'. (Wikipedia)

Whereas salt kills most plants, some Salicornias can't survive in fresh water. It is a land plant; it needs to be out of the water at some point during the day; but where there is no salt, whether from tidal waters or salt spray, it will not grow.

At the very end of the breakwater, the tide comes in, bathing the growing pickleweed. This whole area, rocks included, will be completely underwater at high tide.

Salt, however, is a problem in plant tissues. The concentration has to be contained within certain limits: if there is too little, if the cell juices are too watered down, in these plants that live in salt water, osmosis draws the water out into the more highly concentrated sea water. It's as if the plant were living in a desert.

But if the salt concentration in the plant tissue is too high, the normal functions of the cell are disrupted. Pickleweed deals with this by concentrating salts in the terminal segments of the stems; eventually these tips turn red and fall off, taking the salt with them.

Flowering tips of pickleweed

The plant is a succulent; it has fat, leafless stems, each with a knobby tip, sometimes pink or red, sometimes green. The flowers are found on these knobs, but are extremely small, clustered in groups of 3 in the joints. They are wind-pollinated, and will produce one seed per flower.

Zooming in, to show the pale yellow flowers.

A curious discovery: I had walked out to the end of the new spit, and was returning, hurrying to beat the incoming tide. At the spot where the spit meets the breakwater, (the third photo above) the water was already ankle deep. But the current was moving from the inner bay to the outer ocean.

In the photo above, the water comes from the open strait, but once it breaks over the spit, the direction changes; water goes down to the end, into the bay, and out into the strait again, washing the bay as it goes. With time, this may change the muddy, stinking character of the inner bay. Something to watch.

Snubbed by gulls

We arrived at Sliammon beach close to low tide, and walked out, almost to the edge. At first glance, it seems barren; stony, with a few rocks, a scattered dusting of seaweed; a flat, empty expanse under a big sky.

Looking northwest.

At closer range, though, we saw that most of the larger stones hold tiny barnacles. Underneath them, periwinkle snails and purple crabs wait out the dry hours. I found a few limpets.

A forward-leaning limpet, with an eroded peak.

Along the sides of a creek bed cutting down into the intertidal zone, where salt water mixes with fresh to lower the salinity, healthy clumps of pickleweed (Salicornia) are growing, bright splashes of green in the stony landscape.

Succulent stems of salicornia make a good salad vegetable. (Recipe)

Far out at the water's edge, a flock of gulls dozed and preened lazily. I had a pocketful of bread for them; not the best diet, but as an occasional treat, it's good and our gulls love it. I walked out towards the flock, but they moved away long before I got there, so I stood, tossing bits of bread into the air.

On the White Rock beach, this would have been enough to get me mobbed by the whole shrieking flock, circling and swooping to grab the bread before it hit the ground. Not here. One gull looked in my direction for a moment, then flew away. I walked a few steps closer, and the whole flock lifted off and moved to the next section of beach. I gave up.

Truly wild gulls, not fond of humans.

A Skywatch post.