As I swerve along California’s Route 1, a small brown rodent darts across the road. Looking up, I hear a piercing shriek and see a broad-winged bird hurtling from on high. A few feet above my open-top convertible, the avian assassin, talons outstretched, tail fanned and beak gaping, brakes to a mid-air stop, flounces its feathers and jets back to the heavens. I watch, utterly enraptured.
They were the aquatic beauties of the Northern California coast: ochre sea stars in jewel-bright colors, web-winged bat stars and the spectacular sunflower sea star that reigned as the Beyoncé of the breed. Bigger, brighter, bolder and hungrier than other species, these voracious prowlers could unfurl as many as two dozen arms, rocket across the ocean floor and devour a purple sea urchin in a blink. As an apex predator, the Pycnopodia helianthoides–sometimes dubbed the Death Star– feared none and was feared by all.
