Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Splish, splash!

  

Today's rain filled our bird bath...and then a flock of Bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus) came by and enjoyed a bath.  Bushtits seem to do everything together, so there was lots of splashing!  

Most of the time, foraging Bushtit flocks move through our yard fairly quickly, so it was nice to see them pause, if only for a minute, and enjoying the rain.

 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Focused

  

Wow!  This weekend, Eric looked out the back door and noticed this adult Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) sitting on a post in the garden.

The hawk spent quite a bit of time hunting...landing on tomato cages and walking among the plants.  We're assuming it was focused on finding a songbird.  Impressive to see it up close and to watch its behavior!

Here's another view:

 
This Cooper's Hawk is on the smaller side, so likely a male.  [You can click on the images for larger versions.]

Monday, January 29, 2024

Ready to settle down

  

Okay, back to these little snails that I posted on 27 January 2024!

This would have been a challenging one to identify unless you've spent some time looking at vermetid gastropods, or tube snails.  These are newly hatched Petaloconchus montereyensis!

And if you haven't heard of tube snails yes, that's right, these are snails that don't crawl (at least as adults) and instead live in a calcareous tube that's cemented in place.  

This species of tube snail is a brooder  the adults lay egg capsules inside their tubes and the juveniles hatch and crawl away.  They only crawl for a brief time before attaching to the substrate  e.g., a rock surface or the tube of an adult.  (They tend to be gregarious.)

One of these snails settled after only two days.  In the video below you can see the tiny juvenile (only ~2 mm across) with the new tube that it produced.  And if you look very carefully you can see the coiled shell that it started out with at the very base of the tube!  So cool!  

As adults these snails are attached to the substrate, so they feed in a different way than many common marine snails.  Instead of grazing on algae on the rocks or in tidepools, Petaloconchus feeds by casting a mucous net into the water, letting organic material get caught in the net, then pulling the net back into its mouth.  The snail uses its radula (like a tongue with rows of sharp teeth) to retrieve the net.  Eric captured some video of that feeding motion, too, so he included it in this clip.  This is pretty spectacular footage of tube snails, so be sure to check it out!

The video sequence goes something like this:

  • First 20 seconds  juveniles crawling on their own
  • At ~22 seconds  juveniles exploring the outside of adult tube snails
  • At ~48 seconds  close-ups of the newly settled juvenile with a coiled tube!
  • At ~1:05 minutes  miscellaneous shots of adult tube snails with nice views of their radulas in action


Thanks for the terrific video, Eric!

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Warming up

   

If you're interested in the identity of the snail I posted about last night, I'm going to delay the answer by one day mostly because there might be more footage we can share, but it's not quite ready yet.  For now, I hope you enjoy this beautiful Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa)!

Air temperatures reached 68°F on Cotati today (and I heard that Santa Rosa reached 72°F, tying a record for the date).  Around mid-day Eric spotted a Mourning Cloak in our backyard, but it flew off before I could take a photo.  So I went for a short walk down the street to a spot where I thought it would possible to see another one, and sure enough there were two Mourning Cloaks there sunning in a wet wooded area.

This is one of my favorite butterflies, but I don't see them that often.  I love the deep mahogany color above and the beautiful gold and blue combination along the wing margins.  And they look completely different when the wings are closed, more like a dark leaf or piece of bark:

 
Perhaps you also observed indicators of the warm air temperatures today?

Saturday, January 27, 2024

A short walk

  

Pretty cute, huh?  Eric filmed these two juvenile marine snails tonight.  They're only ~1 mm long.  He put together a nice video clip of them, too see below.  [If you're reading this in an e-mail, click on the title of the post to see the video on the NHBH website.]

These snails are a little unusual in that they look quite different in this stage vs. how they look as adults.  

We thought we'd post the footage first to let you explore and wonder about which species this might be.  Any guesses?  I'll share more info about them tomorrow!

Friday, January 26, 2024

First of the year

  

Full moon photographed in the early morning on 25 January 2024.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Momentary

  

A momentary glimpse of the sky at the end of the day on 24 January 2024.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Pinky

  

Okay, this isn't a recent photo, but I've been busy working on a presentation about sea stars...so here you go!  A young Short-spined Sea Star (Pisaster brevispinus), photographed on 23 May 2015.

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Walk in the rain

 


During a short walk at Point Reyes today (20 January 2024), I looked down to see this newt crossing a path covered in pine needles.  My guess is Rough-skinned Newt (Taricha granulosa), but let me know if you have a different opinion.

 
It was a fairly wet day today a good day for amphibians!  
 

Friday, January 19, 2024

Solo sola

  

A beautiful Sunburst Anemone (Anthopleura sola) photographed by Eric on 19 January 2024.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

First steps?

  

Ah ha!  It was tucked low among the grasses, but I spotted my first Footsteps-of-spring (Sanicula arctopoides) starting to flower on 16 January 2024.    

Monday, January 15, 2024

Out after the rain

  

We had to move some material on the ground today (15 January 2024), and look who was underneath!

Nice to see this beautiful Sierran Treefrog (Pseudacris sierra)...and it reminded me to check our rainfall totals.  So far we've received ~12 inches of rain, or about 38% of the average annual total.  Frogs have been quite vocal throughout our neighborhood.  Have you been hearing them in yours?

Friday, January 12, 2024

Cephalopod surprise

  

We had to work late in the field tonight (time and tide wait for no one!), but we had a brief reward with an octopus sighting!  

P.S.  Thanks to the folks who spotted the octopus and to Eric for getting a photo!

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Resting spot?

  

Recent badger digging, with an interesting area in the lower right corner.  In that oval patch you can see the soil is very smooth, with a couple of footprints.  Perhaps the badger lay down to rest there?

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Glowing in the east

 
Sunrise from Cotati on 8 January 2024
 

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Indicator?

  

I took these photos about a week ago, but wanted to share them since this is a species often associated with warmer water conditions.  

This is the nectophore (swimming bell) of Diphyes dispar, a siphonophore.  We recorded >50 individuals on Salmon Creek Beach on 1 January 2024.

The last time we observed this species was during the 2014-2016 marine heatwaves.  Recent water temperatures have been warmer than average for this time of year, hovering ~13-14°C (56-57°F), perhaps connected to this winter's El Niño.

Here's another photo with a ruler for scale:

 
I introduced Diphyes back in 2014, so for information about them, check out the post called "From the south" on 26 October 2014

Saturday, January 6, 2024

A close eye

  

Marsh Wren (Cistothorus palustris), 31 December 2023

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Beach tones

  

Eric gathered these little beach stones from the outer beach at Point Reyes so we could document the range of colors.  Each stone is quite small  only 2-3 mm in length, so right on the edge between sand and gravel.

Can you tell that they're resting in a crease in my jeans?  I couldn't decide which view was most interesting, so here are a couple more images, going back in time when we first started the mini-collection:

 
 
 
 
And here's one more, with a small sand dollar and the surrounding gravel.  The large grain sizes indicate a very high wave energy beach!

 

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Four tri's!

  

Lottia triangularis

 

 
Rissa tridactyla


 
Tritonia festiva


 
Trifolium macraei
 

Well, I realize it might be hard to see the connection among all of these photos, but I needed something to celebrate NHBH blog post #3,333!  In previous years I noted when I crossed the 1,000 and 2,000 marks, so here's a post to observe crossing 3,000 with four tri's!  Whew!  Thanks for staying with me!

Monday, January 1, 2024

Opportunity

  

A beautiful male Northern Harrier (Circus hudsonius) turning to search for possible prey below.  Photographed on Bodega Head on 31 December 2023.  [You can click on the image for a larger and sharper version.]