Soaking up the sun

  

Lucky day at work today (25 February 2025)!  We were headed outside to eat lunch on the deck when I noticed a very large hill of freshly dug soil...and an American Badger resting right next to it!

The badger mostly spent time lying in the sun, but it looked around a few times, so here are a couple of different views (below).  Note: We watched the badger from far away, so these photos are a little misleading.  I took them with a large zoom lens and then cropped the photos heavily.

 

 

Hooray for coastal prairies and mustelids!

Horseshoes washing ashore

  

A nectophore from Hippopodius on Salmon Creek Beach.  Although this photo is from late December 2024, we saw quite a few of these nectophores on the beach tonight (21 February 2025).

For more information about these structures, check out earlier posts:

"Hippos" on the beach from 16 April 2015

Little hippos on the sand from 21 February 2021

P.S.  My eyebrows always go up when there's an exact match between today's date and a previous date with the same topic, e.g., today's post on 21 February 2025 and the earlier post on 21 February 2021.

White and gold

  

White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) in our backyard in Cotati on 19 February 2025.

Close to the bark

  

I returned home from the farmers' market to hear a Brown Creeper calling in our front yard.  Luckily my camera wasn't too far away, and the creeper spent some time feeding in a few different trees.  

Here it is searching crevices in the bark:

 

 

The creeper appeared to be successful locating prey, but the prey was too small for me to see while watching.  However, zooming in on photos later revealed a couple of prey items.

 

A small insect larva at the tip of the bill:

 

 

 

 

And possibly a small spider?

 

 

 

 

Turned out there were two creepers, both feeding along different tree trunks.

 

I love how well Brown Creepers blend in with the landscape of the trees—  the bark and lichens and mosses:

 

 

 

I'm also grateful for such wonderful visitors to our yard!

In the shape of a heart

  

These nudibranchs are white
with some orange, too
They're sending a Valentine's wish
directly to you!

Mating pair of Cockerell's Dorid nudibranchs (Limacia cockerelli), photographed on 29 January 2025.

 ♥ Happy Valentine's Day! ♥ 

Gold stripes and gold flecks

  

Beautiful gold-flecked hermit crab in a Three-colored Top Snail (Calliostoma tricolor) shell.  Photographed on 28 January 2025.

Lone ranger and the hermit

  

A couple of neighborhood birds in Cotati today (8 February 2025).

 Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum), above, and Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus), below.

 

 

On the move

  

 

Eric photographed this beautiful Opalescent Nudibranch (Hermissenda opalescens) wandering through a world of pastel colors on 29 January 2025. 

 

In the background: the pale pink is a crustose coralline algae, the bright pink is a Derby Hat Bryozoan (Integripelta bilabiata), and the peach is another species of bryozoan (unidentified species).

A color here, a color there

  

Those sculpin eyes, they get me every time.  (And that green and white patterning is magical!)

Photographed in the rocky intertidal zone along the Sonoma Coast in early January 2025.

Upcoming

  

For all of the marine invertebrate enthusiasts out there — I wanted to mention that Eric will be presenting a webinar for Bay Nature magazine this week on Wednesday, Feb. 5, from 12-1 p.m. PST.  He'll be discussing the local diversity of marine invertebrates and some new discoveries, accompanied by lots of great photos and videos!

If you're interested in checking it out, you can register to join the talk online here.

P.S.  This is a Dwarf Brittle Star (Amphipholis squamata) photographed on Bodega Head last week.

Inspiration, move me brightly

  

Eric noticed this amazing sculpin recently -- the colors behind the eyes are a perfect match for orange sponge and pink coralline algae found in low rocky intertidal zone areas.

This might be a Smoothhead Sculpin (Artedius lateralis), but we'd love input about the identification.