Oceans

Sea Stars Rising

Sep 13, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Climate Change, Coast, Environment, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

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.

Frank Zappa’s Jellyfish

Aug 16, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Fish & Fishing, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans

“Have you heard of Frank Zappa?”

Visitors touring the Bodega Marine Laboratory and Reserve often seem surprised by my question. Baby-boomers call out answers: Guitarist. Composer. Had a band called the Mothers of Invention. Named his kids Moon Unit and Dweezle. For those too young to recall, I explain that shaggy-haired, iconoclastic Frank Zappa (1940-1993) released more than sixty albums and rocked the music world in a career that spanned three decades,

A Gull’s Guide to Parenting

Aug 2, 2024 | Adventures, Animals, Birds & Birding, Coast, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

The first time I spied newborn Western gulls, I instinctively wanted to scoop the downy, dotted hatchlings up and away from a sea and sky of dangers. I needn’t have worried. Their parents had the job covered.

We Do Beach

Jul 19, 2024 | Adventures, Climate Change, Environment, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

The beach attracts creatures of every sort: two-footed, four-pawed, finned, furry, feathered, scaly, slimy, slithering. With local animal trackers, I’ve trailed rabbits and raccoons, geese and gulls, deer and otters to observe how they “do beach.” But I never thought of looking at humans in the same way.

Pelicans in the ‘Hood

Jul 12, 2024 | Animals, Birds & Birding, Climate Change, Environment, Fish & Fishing, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans, Outdoors

The streets where I live are named for California birds: Heron, Gull, Swan, Osprey, Loon. When I tell people my address, some ask if I ever see real pelicans on their namesake loop. Indeed I do. From early summer into fall, Brown Pelicans glide over our neighborhood almost every day.

The Blobs: Fantasy vs. Fact

Jul 5, 2024 | Climate Change, Environment, Fish & Fishing, Marine science, Nature, Ocean Life, Oceans

In The Blob, a 1958 horror movie, a gelatinous people-eating alien terrified a small town as it devoured residents and grew bigger, redder and more voracious. The film became a drive-in favorite and a sci-fi cult classic. More than half a century later the entire West Coast of North America faced a very real and even more dangerous Blob. In the winter of 2013/2014 a “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” of high pressure, as meteorologists described it, clamped over the north Pacific like a lid, stalling winds and blocking storms. Warmer-than-normal waters spread, eventually covering about 3.5 million square miles from Alaska to Mexico—an area larger than the contiguous United States.

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.

Oceans

Sea Stars Rising

Frank Zappa’s Jellyfish

A Gull’s Guide to Parenting

We Do Beach

Pelicans in the ‘Hood

The Blobs: Fantasy vs. Fact

How I Became a Concubine of the Coast

Nest, Sweet Nest

A Very Big Fish Story

A Seal’s Lullaby

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