The Natural History of Bodega Head

    I looked down to see this distinctive shell washed up at Point Reyes this past weekend (23 August 2025).  Note the elongate shape and th...

    We went out to the rocky shore early this morning to start some surveys.  Right away Eric noticed that the tidepools looked unusual.  Al...

    Close-up of barnacles on a Californa Mussel ( Mytilus californianus ) shell, photographed on 29 April 2024. There are at least two age c...

    This morning (24 April 2023) we were finishing some surveys at a site with lots of wave splash.  In this case that means the intertidal ...

    Whew, I'm finally getting over a heel injury...and it's just in time for spring field work!  Eric and I were doing some intertid...

    Black Oystercatcher ( Haematopus bachmani ) and California Mussels ( Mytilus californianus ).  Photographed at sunset on 17 January 2022...

Sola green (tentacles of the Sunburst Anemone, Anthopleura sola ):       Sculpin green:         Siphon green (clam siphon):      

    One morning last week when we were headed out to do field work, we noticed an odd smell in the area and later we found the source — some...

      Colors on the inside of a California Mussel ( Mytilus californianus ) shell.    Would you have guessed?  :)

    Although you might have heard that sea stars use their tube feet to grab hold of mussels and to pull the two valves open slightly (enoug...

There's a lot of red in the intertidal zone, along with pinks and oranges and golds at that end of the color spectrum.  Sometimes it...

Well, I didn't get a chance to take any photos today, so I browsed through photos from the last month or so (from various locations) an...

  Remember the mussel mortality event that I mentioned last week?  (See posts called " Too hot " and " Too hot -- Part ...

For the record, I'm sharing a few more photos of the California Mussel mortality event in the intertidal zone that I mentioned last nigh...

Last week's record warm air temperatures (for the date) seem to have impacted some of the local rocky intertidal zone species.  Unfortun...

  Secret Jewelbox ( Chama arcana ), 26 January 2019.  The shells of this small bivalve occasionally wash up on local beaches.

  Rose-painted Semele ( Semele rubropicta ), photographed in Bodega Bay on 21 March 2017.  It was ~3 cm (a little over an inch) long. ...

Can you guess how this hole was made?     This beveled and circular borehole was made in a Pacific Littleneck Clam ( Leukoma stamin...

We haven't done a mystery close-up in a while. Can you guess what this is?   It looks like a series of waves running towards th...

On 15 September, Eric and I noticed some very small scallop shells washed up on Salmon Creek Beach.  Here's an example:   We were...