May 2024 Archives

How I Became a Concubine of the Coast

May 31, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Environment, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

Blame it on the Lewis’ moon snail. From my first training session with the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, veteran tidepoolers regaled me with evocative descriptions of a luminous, majestic sea snail, famed for its architectural wonder of a shell–and named for the famed explorer Meriwether Lewis (as in Lewis and Clark). Guided by a biological blueprint encoded in its genes, the largest of moon snails constructs spiral upon spiral of calcium carbonate and other organic compounds. At the center of these swirls, a dark apex gleams like an all-seeing eye.

Nest, Sweet Nest

May 24, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Birds & Birding, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

The mission: Construct a home for soon-to-be-born offspring.

The rules: Use only scavenged materials. Carry them to the site in your mouth. Employ nothing but your appendages as tools. Ensure shelter from wind, water, and roving bandits.

The seabirds in love introduced in a previous post set to work. As monitors for the Seabird Protection Network on the Northern California coast, we watch and wonder: Where can these parents-to-be, who spend much of the year over open water, find safe haven on our rugged shore?

A Very Big Fish Story

May 17, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Environment, Fish & Fishing, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

A mile offshore from Bodega Head in 120 feet of water, the captain cuts the engine. The 65-foot chartered research vessel pitches from side to side in steep swells. Ten men, one young woman, and I take our stations at the railing.

“Lines down!” a voice booms.

Not until this moment do I realize that I probably should have considered my gender, age, size, and complete lack of fishing experience before volunteering as an angler for the California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program. My life goals immediately winnow down to three: Do not fall off the lurching boat. Do not join the miserable retchers chumming the waves with their breakfasts. And prove to be of some scientific value by catching at least one fish.

A Seal’s Lullaby

May 10, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Environment, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

Like us, harbor seals are warm-blooded, air-breathing mammals with hearts and lungs. The first time I observed a breeding colony, I realized that I have something else in common with females of the species: We are Moms, fiercely devoted to and protective of our children.

Seabirds in Love

May 3, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Nature, Ocean Life, Outdoors

Love is in the air—literally. Song birds chorus. Doves coo. Along the northern California coast, ocean-going birds court and breed. Our mission as volunteers for the Seabird Protection Network is to monitor their numbers, nests, eggs, and chicks. But when visitors ask what I’m looking at through my binoculars, I simply say “seabirds in love.”