Fish on the sand

In the eelgrass beds at the bottom of the intertidal zone, fish dart through the thickets, usually visible only as a flash of movement, a streaking silver shape dashing from shadow to shadow, or a panicked thrash to escape my clumsy foot. They're usually not the fish I see in the upper zones, the sculpins and the flatfish, but they speed away so fast that I haven't been able to recognize any.

This last trip to the low tide line, though, the shallows were littered with dead and dying small fish; I was able to identify three species.

Another Pacific sand lance, Ammodytes hexapterus. These grow to about 11 inches long, so this is a youngster.

In one small area, I counted over 50 of these, all dead, but still fresh, surprisingly still untouched by gulls or crabs. They were all young; the adults spawn and die in mid-winter here. I am wondering what caused this die-off.

A larger sand lance, still alive, but barely. The back is a glittery blue-green, which should help with camouflage in the eelgrass beds, at least from above. At night, they burrow into the sand, to hide from predators.

Mixed with the sand lances, a few darker, larger fish stood out.

Pacific snake prickleback, Lumpenus sagitta. About 8 inches long.

Another. This was still alive, but not able to swim away.

Again, these were young fish; the adults grow to 20 inches long and spawn in the winter.

One more; a beautiful singing midshipman, no longer able to sing.

A steampunk fish, looking as if he were made of riveted plates. Plainfin midshipman, Porichthys notatus, about 8 inches long.

These are night-swimming fish; during the day, they hide under rocks. I found a male, guarding eggs, about this same time three years ago, under a rock at the boat launch. He was fatter and longer than this one.

The "rivets" are lines of photopores, cells that emit light. They may help to attract prey at night. (Although we don't really know that; it's human speculation. We do like to imagine that we understand Ma Nature.)

Belly up, showing the pattern of photopores, and his delicate colouring.

Zooming in to the tail end, to show the little lights, and - look closely - tiny waving three-fingered hands, all in a row.

I didn't pick this one up; some midshipmen have poisonous spines. I'm not sure if this species does, but I'm not risking it.

And I'm left wondering why all these suddenly showed up dead, all at once. The water was clear, it smelled fresh, there was no scum or oil sheen. There is construction going on 'way back at the shore, but that's a full kilometre away. Worrisome.

Another handful of fish

This one's a Pacific Snake Prickleback, aka Eel-blenny.

Lumpenus sagitta, about 8 inches long. Alive, but sluggish, so I'm holding him underwater.

Again, more on these later; I'm still sorting fishy photos.

A fish in the hand ...

is worth any number in the sea.

Pacific sand lance, Ammodytes hexapterus

More on these later.

Those famished eyes!

A very hungry racoon, a nursing mother, came to my door yesterday night, begging. But first, she climbed my potting shelf and turned over a basket to get at a bag of shells, saved for drainage material.

Disappointing! All the shells are empty!

(Photo is in black and white, because, taken through double-paned glass, it was polluted with colours reflected from inside. A green raccoon? With pink eyebrows? Not good.)

I opened the door and chased her away. She went reluctantly, looking back, hoping I'd relent. Later, once she was gone, I went out and tidied up the mess. While I was at it, I looked up, and there she was, looking wistful, barely a foot away. I dashed back inside; I don't want to tangle with a desperate coon. And she tried to follow me through the door. I slammed it in her face.

And then she sat there, staring at the latch, looking soooo sad. She broke my heart; it's awful to have babies and not enough food.

"Please? Pretty please?"

No, I didn't feed her. Eventually, she wandered off, disconsolate. I hope she found some good eats somewhere, just not on my doorstep.

Greedy pig!

The hermit crabs have eaten all the fuzzy eelgrass, and the aquarium is bare. I'll bring home more goodies in a couple of days, but meanwhile, I've given them their winter substitute; dried shrimp pellets. All my critters love these, but they do bring out the worst character traits.

Like greed. And dog-in-the-mangerism. And outright thievery.

The second largest hermit. Doesn't answer to Tex.

If you look closely, you can see that he is holding two shrimp pellets, one that he's chewing on, and the second held in his extra mouthparts for later. Other hermits approach him, asking for a taste, but he flashes out that big pincer and knocks them backwards. He's not sharing.

Furthermore, ...

"I want it all!"

Now he has three pellets; one in his mouth, one held beneath, and one in his smaller pincer. He rolled another hermit to get this one, yanked it out of the other's mouth. And he's not sharing this, either.

Except ...

"Stop, thief!"

While he was busy chasing away another hungry hermit, this little guy snuck up underneath him and stole his third lunch. He made a run for it, dragging the food beneath him, but only made it about four inches before he was captured, rolled, and the shrimp pellet confiscated.

And Tex retired to a handy clamshell with all three pellets, to eat at his leisure. The others will have to wait for his crumbs.

More sixes!

Strange: up until a month ago, I had never seen a six-armed starfish. And this last trip to the low tide mark, they were everywhere. Almost all the clamshells I picked up held at least one, and I even found a small one floating, holding onto fine algae hairs.

Baby star, belly-up

Dark brown star. They all seem to like the hinge end of the clamshells.

Two-toned six-armed star.

Pale brown, dark brown, and grey patterns.

I also found many mottled stars, all young. And none, not even one of our usual orange or purple stars, which were the ones most severely hit by the sea star wasting syndrome. Their loss may have been the opportunity for these less common stars to expand their territory.

Cozy home

In an underground parking garage at Deer Lake, a crow was just leaving when I parked. When I returned an hour later, he passed me again at the door, coming in this time. I grabbed the camera and went hunting for a nest.

Found it!

It's a good set-up; no wind, no rain, no squirrels, a solid base, and plenty of insulation to add to the nest itself. And good, non-rainy perches for her mate.

Keeping an eye on me.

I walked around and around, trying to get a good angle, always keeping one eye on that guarding crow; at the least sign of irritation, I was prepared to duck and run. But neither he nor his mate on the nest seemed perturbed. They knew I couldn't have climbed up to the nest.

Two beady eyes on me.

And now all they needed was some peace and quiet. I took my camera and came home.

It's a dog eat dog world out there.

About that family that Val ate ...

The eelgrass beds last week held a large population of proliferating anemones, riding high on the grass, feeding on the small animals in the diatom and hydroid fuzz.

Proliferating anemone, Epiactis prolifera, proliferating.

Like this one, most were adults carrying a column-full of babies and youngsters. Where they have been hiding up until now, I'm not sure; maybe half-buried in the sandy bottom, and now they have midgrated to the eelgrass to feed.

Another family, with one youngster already out on his own. The young stay on the mother's column for 3 months, then crawl away.

I transferred this blade of eelgrass to a bottle of water, and brought it home to the aquarium, where the family settled in happily.

The babies come in a range of sizes; they're not all birthed the same day.

Another view. The anemone in back has captured a chunk of hermit crab food.

Then their troubles began. The hermit crabs ripped the end of the eelgrass out of the clamshell I'd anchored it in, and it floated away. I moved it around to rest against the glass, and the mother anemone started to transfer to the wall. She would be safe there, but again, the hermits yanked the eelgrass away. I found her later, up against the back wall, busy moving onto a stone. That would have been perfect; only the crabs move stones around, and the three in the tank now are very small.

And then, before she was glued down, something moved her again and left her and her brood at the mercy of the current. Which was flowing towards the big burrowing anemone, Val, and her hungry tentacles.

Next thing I knew, Val's mouth was full. And the ends of the eelgrass were protruding. The only sign of the whole blue family was the hint of blue around Val's mouth.

Val's blue mouth. And a young hermit, trying to get at the crumbs from Val's dinner.

This morning, Val spit out the rest of the eelgrass blade, with a bit of slime, all that remains of the entire blue family.

Luckily, before the first move, two of the youngsters decided to leave home, and established themselves on the wall of the tank. They're still there, waving pale blue tentacles, eating and growing.

Young brooding anemone, not old enough to brood yet. 5 mm across the base.

Poppies, purple crawlers, and blue lips

My big anemone, Val, just ate a whole family, mother and kiddies all together! Val's looking fat and happy, if a bit blue around the lips.

I'll tell the whole story tomorrow, with photos of the family in happier days.

For now, here's the mystery ten-legged thing I posted the other day. (I shouldn't really have called it a critter in the title, should I? Not exactly fair.)

No, not a sunflower sea star.

And here's the photo, with background.

Poppy seed pod, half ripe.

And here are a few younger poppies, not gone to seed yet:

Saturated sunlight.

A flaming cradle for that ten-legged, purple "thingie" in the centre.

Poppy and a half. With buds and ferns.

So, tomorrow, then, the sad loss of an entire blue family.

And a couple more crabs

This one is a baby.

Red rock crab juvenile, Cancer productus

I pick up loosely closed clamshells, especially those loaded with barnacles. Almost every one is serving as shelter for young critters. This one held the crab, three small stars, and a scale worm. Look for the worm in the hinge, above, one of the stars in the background, below.

The poor crab didn't know how to deal with sunlight and a giant black eye staring at it. First he tried cowering, then ...

... the challenge. "I'm big and brave and I'll pinch you!"

"Or maybe not. If I roll over and fold up, maybe the giant won't see me."

All these poses took less than a minute. Then I closed the clamshell and put it back down under the eelgrass.

The stripy carapace will be discarded as he grows; as an adult, he will be mostly a dark red. The underside, however, will still have those red spots on white.

Most of the young crabs I've been seeing are the Dungeness crabs, Cancer magister.

Two-inch crab, running, under knee-deep water.

The two crabs are cousins, but the differences are fairly obvious. The Dungeness has a smoother carapace, rougher, toothed, pincer arms, and prominent teeth along the edge of the carapace. The Red Rock crab's carapace is bumpy, but his pincer arms are missing the teeth. The teeth on the edge of the carapace are wavy, and fluted like a pie crust.

The Dungeness gets quite a bit bigger; up to 11 inches across the top. The Red Rock will grow to 8 inches.

At every low tide this time of year, the crabbers are out with buckets and nets and crab traps, wading out waist-deep with the traps, or tramping through shallower water with long-stemmed nets. It's the big Dungeness that they're after; sometimes size is a disadvantage.

Messy crab, with a hat.

Three weeks ago, wading in the eelgrass beds at the bottom of the tidal plain, I saw hundreds of egg masses, pink and yellow, and their parents, opalescent nudibranchs and bubble shells. A couple of days ago, the tide was even lower, and I spent two hours making figure-eights in the same area. And there were no pink and yellow eggs, no nudibranchs, few bubble shells.

Everything has its own season.

This week, the beds are full of blue anemones, sea stars, and crabs. Unusual crabs: crabs I'd never seen before.

For example, this little guy.

He's less than an inch across.

He is completely covered in algae or diatom fuzz, and is wearing a comparatively huge barnacle on his back. Good for camouflage; not so good for the purpose of identification.

The carapace is triangular, with a long cap protecting his head area. It's hard to tell if it's smooth or bumpy, but the edges are wavy, rather than toothed like the shore crabs' carapaces, or sharp, like the kelp crabs. His pincers are bluish*, with orange tips; the legs are also tipped with orange.

I've been examining the photos in the Encyclopedia with a lens, trying to find a match. The closest I can find is the sharpnose crab, Scyra acutifrons, which grows to just under 2 inches across. Adult males have long pincers, but the females are similar to this one. Or maybe he's a juvenile decorator crab, Loxorhynchus crispatus. These grow to about 5 inches across the carapace.

Both these crabs "decorate" their shells, adding algae, anemones, barnacles, diatoms, what have you. And in both species, the males have long pincers, while the females' pincers are about the length of the legs.

Here he is upside-down, and struggling to right himself. From here, he looks like a male, with the narrow plate on the abdomen.

Here's how I saw him at first, under a foot of water:

Under the water, the diatom fuzz is more apparent. His pincers are definitely blue. His eyes look blue, too.

Do you recognize this crab? Can you help with the ID?

*The blue coloring could also be because he is young, and his skin is semi-transparent, so the blue blood shows through.

Name this critter

I spent the afternoon wading thigh-deep in eelgrass beds, and I'm tired, sunburnt, and somewhat wound up. I'll have photos and a report as soon as I finish sorting.

Meanwhile, just a bit of silliness.

Can you identify this ten-legged thing I found? Or take a wild guess?

I've removed the background, because that would make it too easy, since I've already given you a hint.

And that's a second hint.

Third hint: it's about an inch across.

I'll give you a couple of days to come up with ideas, then post the whole photo.

Golden

I went for a walk at sunset to catch the warm light on neighbourhood flowers, and found a cat who carries the glow in her face, even with her back to the sun.

Marmalade eyes.

And a selfie.

Flowers at sunset, tomorrow.

Disappearing plates

I've been finding quite a few scale worms recently, in the eelgrass beds, and in my tank. I got one to sort of settle down in a tray for a minute.

Fifteen-scaled worm, Harmothoe imbricata

I've counted and counted: I can only find fourteen scales on either side, but the tail end has been damaged, so some may have fallen off.* The scales are like little round, overlapping plates that protect the whole worm, right up to the 4 eyes. They may help in swimming, which these critters do much more gracefully than other worms.

These are free-roaming worms, sometimes crawling, sometimes swimming. I find them on clamshells, on stones, on eelgrass, out hunting. They eat amphipods and anything else small enough to be subdued. The largest I have seen is about an inch long.

*There's a beautiful photo of one of these on Flickr. And this one has the same problem with disappearing plates: I count 15 on one side, 13 on the other.

Amphipod on the wall

A smear of bubble shell slime, some snail poop, and a couple grains of sand are all a house-hunting amphipod needs to move in.

How the sand got 'way up there, I don't know.

Group photo

It's almost as if they were posing for me! The critters in my tank do love a pile of barnacles and clamshells. And they like looking out of windows, too!

Busy scene

Visible in this photo: 8 hermits, 2 mud snails, 1 bubble shell snail, 1 leafy hornmouth snail, umpteen barnacles. Not visible but certainly there: at least 1 scale worm, several amphipods, a flock of copepods, and a crab (hiding under the double clamshell. And the 9th hermit, in a pinhead shell, somewhere among the barnacles.

Any time I look, the barnacle piles are crowded, mostly with hermits. Unless I've brought them some new fuzzy eelgrass; then they abandon the barnacles and go to work high overhead, cleaning eelgrass.

Pine-cone fish and a manky mallard

Beside the pond in Boundary Park, a half-dozen small children, mostly preschoolers, were watching ducklings in a shallow mini-bay. I was carrying a bag of bread crumbs, so I joined the group and added to the fun.

"Mmmm ... ! Multi-grain bread, my fave!"

These were half-grown ducklings, out on their own with parents supervising from a distance. They were obviously accustomed to being fed in this spot, and came out of the water, right up to the kids feet, to pick up stray crumbs. So ... great excitement all around; laughing, squealing, (the kids) splashing, gobbling, sometimes fighting (the ducklings).

And then the fish turned up, as excited as all the rest.

The water is shallow; the carp is scraping his belly in the mud to get at the bread.

The setting sun catches the carp's fan tail, turning it a neon orange.

There is a school of these at Reifel Island Migratory Bird Sanctuary; they feed in the shadow of a steep bank, where the sun rarely shines. Even there, the pattern of their scales stands out. Here, half out of water, and in sunlight, it is even more striking.

And don't they look like evergreen cones? Look:

A pine cone, maybe, in wet weather?

Adults, on the fringes of the feeding horde, not hungry enough to challenge the fish.

The splotchy white duck is another hybrid, a "manky mallard".

Call it a practice run

It had been a while since we visited Surrey Lake, and I remembered large flocks of waterfowl, an eagles' nest, with chicks, a forest walk with wildlife trees, wildflowers. I changed the lens on the camera, cleaned out some beach sand (how it gets inside is a mystery!) and made sure the battery was full, then joined the walkers around the lake.

The loop trail is about 1.5 kilometres long, and I took my time, taking photos as I went. I couldn't see the lake from the trail this time; rushes and cat-tails have grown up all along the shore, 6 feet and more tall. A couple of unofficial side trails snaked through the barrier; disappointing, because all the birds were on the far side, where there are no weekend dog walkers. I took photos of some yellow irises growing among the rushes.

And an eagle was home, standing guard above the nest. No chicks were visible, but I got photos of the eagle, and then of a crow dive-bombing him.

And so it went, through meadow, wetlands, forest, and back to the parking lot. Where I discovered that I'd left the camera on the aquarium setting, ready for low light and algae-tinted water. All the photos were too washed out to be rescued.

At the edge of the parking lot, in the shade, the light was at aquarium levels; at least I have something besides a sunburn to show for my afternoon.

Pacific ninebark, Physocarpus capitatus, in bud. The flowers are white; a few petals are showing.

Dame's rocket, Hesperis matronalis, on the bank of the creek.

And I'll try again, soon. But not on a weekend. And with the camera on the proper setting. I hope.