New Year's Eve ball drop?

  

Very young Red Sea Urchin (Mesocentrotus franciscanus), about 8 mm across, on 31 December 2024.  Best wishes for 2025!

Winter star

  

Juvenile Ochre Sea Star (Pisaster ochraceus), about 6 mm across, on 30 December 2024

At home in the rain

  

Arboreal Salamander (Aneides lugubris) in the rain in Cotati on 28 December 2024.  

Wood-warbler

  

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) on driftwood along the upper beach near Salmon Creek, 25 December 2024.

Storm watcher?

 

 

Barn Owl (Tyto alba) perched in a California Wax Myrtle (Morella californica) at Point Reyes on 26 December 2024.

Happy hula-days!

  

This is a record shot -- i.e., not a great photo, but one that's important for documentation.  

We went for a short walk at Salmon Creek Beach this afternoon and recorded quite a few gelatinous species, including 5 species of siphonophores (!), a ctenophore, a pteropod, and a salp.

I'll share some more photos and information soon, but for now I just wanted to highlight this intriguing Hula Skirt Siphonophore (Physophora hydrostatica).

I wrote about this species almost 10 years ago, so for a better explanation and some additional photos and illustrations, check out the post called "A Hula Skirt!" on 7 May 2015.

Holiday sunrise

  

 

Sunrise, 25 December 2024

 

Happy holidays, everyone!

From an offshore storm

  

The offshore buoy was reporting wave heights of ~22 feet earlier today (23 December 2024).  These were big waves, so I took a few photos for the record.  

Each photo has at least one gull in front of the wave for scale.  The gulls seem to love surfing the winds off these waves, which is fun to watch.  You can click on the images for larger versions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stormy conditions are going to continue for a while, so stay a safe distance away from these waves.

Reaching out to say...

  

  Happy solstice, everyone!

P.S.  From a Ten-tentacled Sea Anemone (Halcampa decemtentaculata) photographed recently by Eric along the Sonoma Coast.

Blowing offshore

  

Not sure about you, but I was a little surprised by the strength of the wind this morning.  I think the prediction was for ~6 mph, but it was more like 18 mph with gusts to 28 mph.  And it was from the east or east-northeast (blowing offshore), so it created some interesting foam line patterns perpendicular to the shore.

Conditions were also good for clean waves and spindrift:

 

 

 

 

Purple sky

  

Purple sky from Bodega Head on 17 December 2024

Frosty forms

  

 Frost in Massachusetts on 14 December 2024

Gifts from the north country

  

It was a bit of soggy day here today (10 December 2024), but we spent a little time walking at Duxbury Beach (in Massachusetts) and encountered a flock of ~25-30 Horned Larks (Eremophila alpestris).  

I thought I could hear some Lapland Longspurs (Calcarius lapponicus) mixed in with them as they flew by, so I snapped a few quick photos and then we spent a little more time trying to find them when they landed.  (You can see at least four longspurs in the photo above.)

Conditions were tough for photos (distant and dark), but here's an example of a Horned Lark (first photo below) and a Lapland Longspur (second photo):

 

 

 

 

 

 

And when we were walking back to the car, we noticed some movement on the ground and were glad to see a few Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis):

 

 

 

It was worth going out in the rain!

 

Homes on the rocks

  

Northern Acorn Barnacles (Semibalanus balanoides), photographed in Scituate, Massachusetts, on 9 December 2024.

Thanks for the great photo, Eric!

Light on the light

 
 

A couple of photos of sunrise over Scituate Harbor, 9 December 2024

 

 

And here's one more, with the light on the light:

 

Morning warning?

  

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning?

Whew, it was an intense day with a tsunami warning issued after an earthquake near Cape Mendocino.  The tsunami warning covered a large swath of the West Coast from Florence, Oregon, to Davenport, California.

The only surge measurement I've heard about so far was 9 cm at Arena Cove (near Point Arena) at 11:45 a.m.

This brought back memories of the Tōhoku tsunami in 2011 and the Tonga tsunami in 2022.  I posted a few photos and some info in 2022, so if you'd like to review that post, see "Tsunami surges" on 16 January 2022.

The same or different?

  

Eric photographed some nice sculpins a few days ago.  These two (above and below) were intriguing.  Although at first glance these fish appear to be different, a closer look reveals quite a few similarities, e.g., the shape of the head, the red striping in their eyes, the shapes and sizes of some of the pale blue markings.  So now I'm wondering if they're the same species?  What do you think?

 

 

P.S.  Thanks for the great photos, Eric!

 

December light

  

 Sunset off Bodega Head, 2 December 2024

Wile E.'s

  

These are somewhat distant views (the photos are heavily cropped), but it was interesting to watch a group of three coyotes in a salt marsh at Point Reyes recently.  I appreciated the way their fur matched the fall colors of the marsh. Were they hunting small mammals during the flood tide?  Ducks?