Snow in the rain

 

Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) on Duxbury Beach, Massachusetts, 23 December 2013. 

In total we observed five Snowy Owls on Duxbury Beach today — quite a birthday present!  I was reminded how much I miss seeing these occasional visitors from the far north.

There is an historic irruption of Snowy Owls occurring in the Northeast this winter.  I haven't yet heard the details of where it stands in comparison to other years with high numbers of Snowy Owls (perhaps someone can help me out?), but I'm glad to have seen a very small glimpse of it.

Wayne Peterson (with the Massachusetts Audubon Society) sent around a link to Bruce Mactavish's blog with some information about the incredible numbers of Snowy Owls in Newfoundland and hinting that these birds may be originating from northern Quebec after a very successful breeding season there this past summer.

Here are two more photos of different individuals from Duxbury Beach today.  The next one shows very dark barring, indicating that this may be a young female (females tend to be darker than males).

 

This individual is much paler (see below).  Note that all of these photos were taken from far away with a long lens and then heavily cropped.  If you look closely, you'll find some wet feathers on these owls as all of us (the owls and my mother and I) were out in the rain today.

 

I have very fond memories of watching Snowy Owls on Cape Cod.  One of my favorite experiences involved a Snowy Owl that had caught a Common Eider and a Northern Harrier that wanted some of the eider, too.  The owl was perched on the ground holding onto the duck.  The harrier would walk slowly towards the owl and then try to grab hold of the eider by reaching backward with one of its long legs.  Eventually the owl would respond by raising its wings and screeching at the harrier, and the harrier would retreat.  But the harrier kept trying over and over again!  It never succeeded as far as I know, but it was an unforgettable wildlife observation.

 

Fluid and evanescent

Two of the items on my birthday wish list included a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the John Singer Sargent Watercolors exhibit and a walk to look for a Snowy Owl.  Today we accomplished the first and tomorrow we'll attempt the second!

I've always been awestruck by Sargent's ability to depict reflections on water.  And seeing his paintings in person just increased my wonder and appreciation for his skill.  You can understand why the Wall Street Journal used words like fluid and evanescent when describing his work.

I didn't take any pictures today, but here's an image of reflections on water from Tomales Bay in August 2012.  It's very abstract, but it's the first picture that came to mind when I thought about the Sargent paintings.

 

If you happen to be in the Boston area and can make it to the Sargent exhibit, I highly recommend it!  And around the corner in a smaller gallery room, don't miss Audubon's Birds, Audubon's Words.  The extra large John James Audubon prints include American White Pelican, Great Auk, and Ivory-billed Woodpecker among others. 

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/john-singer-sargent-watercolors

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/audubons-birds-audubons-words

The Dao of Ice

We've been traveling and settling in for an East Coast visit.  Tonight I barely made it outside for a quick walk in the backyard before the sun set.  I was drawn to the snowy banks of a small ice-covered stream.  We just don't get to see those wintery black-and-white scenes in Bodega Bay!

Not too many photo opportunities today, but here's a close-up of the ice:

 

I hope you enjoyed the winter solstice, and that you're able to find much peace and happiness and inspiration in the outdoors in the year to come!

P.S.  Eric thought the pattern in the ice resembled the yin-yang symbol, hence the title of this post.  I didn't see that until he mentioned it, but then it was fun to think about.  What else do you see in the ice?  Can you visualize how those patterns were formed?

An amazing transformation

Earlier in December I wrote about finding the first larvae of an unusual hydroid, Candelabrum fritchmanii, in California.  Well, we have continued to follow some of these larvae in the lab, and I have a few more fun photos to share.

First, here's a nice image showing a newly hatched actinula larva next to an empty egg case (the egg case is clear and partially torn).  I'm guessing the larva had emerged from this case very recently.  (If you look closely, you can see that the egg case is being held from below by a slender clasper tentacle.)

 

Next, two of my best pictures of a young Candelabrum fritchmanii larva.  These images are of the same individual, but they show how extensible the larva is — stretching outward and pulling back in.  This larva is ~1 mm long.

 

 

When the larvae are about a week old, the posterior region elongates and develops an attachment disc at the end.  Here are two different individuals, the first with the attachment disc at the bottom of the photo (a bit blurry), and the second with the disc at the top.

 

 

The next stage in the transformation is dramatic.  Once the larva attaches to the substrate (in this case the substrate is kelp), it basically collapses into a sphere.  During this process of metamorphosis, the long primary larval tentacles are resorbed, so all you see are short stubby tentacles:

 

And then it very quickly becomes a tiny polyp!  Two days after I took the picture above, here is what this polyp looked like:

 

It was amazing to see the process from hatching to a crawling actinula larva with long outstretched tentacles to an attached rounded sphere and then a tiny polyp, all within about a week and a half!

Streaming by

For at least the last week, as I've been getting ready to leave for work, I've noticed very large flocks of birds streaming by overhead.  These pictures don't really do them justice, but look for the small dark specks against the blue sky and gray and white clouds.

 

By the time I found my camera this morning, the largest flocks had gone by already.  But here are a few more images to document this phenomenon.  Today many of the birds were so high that it was difficult to see them at first.  (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them slightly.)

 

 

All told, there were thousands of birds.  Although it will be a challenge, if they're flying by tomorrow, I'll have to try to count.

Do you have any guesses yet about which species this might be?  I'll show two more photos of flocks high in the sky...and then two closer shots that may help you identify the species involved.

 

 

 

 

I know they're not great shots, but it's the best I could do this morning.

These are American Robins (Turdus migratorius), the largest North American thrush.

There are lots of questions surrounding these morning flights of robins.  Is there a communal roost somewhere to the west?  If so, how many birds are using it?  Is there a food source somewhere to the east?  (All of the birds were flying west to east.)  Did the cold temperatures cause large numbers of robins to gather in this area?  Have I missed seeing morning flights of robins here before?

It's impressive to see such large numbers of birds flying by.  Fun fact: In the early 1900s, an American Robin roost of 250,000 birds was documented in Arkansas.  Wow!

 

Something new

One of my favorite things is learning something new about a familiar species.

Here's a picture of a juvenile marine invertebrate that is more easily recognized as an adult:

 

Can you tell which species of sea star this is?

The number of rays, or arms, is a clue.  As is its speed.  I had trouble taking pictures of this individual because it kept crawling very quickly out of view!

 

Have you counted the number of rays?  There are 8 total, of 3 different lengths.  Five long, one medium, and two short.

This number of rays rules out most of the local sea stars.  I'll also tell you that this individual was found in the rocky intertidal zone, that it was flexible (not stiff), and spiny (not smooth).

Have you guessed?  I'll reveal the answer below the next photo.  This one shows the size, at about 14 mm (~1/2 inch).

 

This is a juvenile Sunflower Star (Pycnopodia helianthoides)!  The adults are much larger (up to 4 feet across) and have many more rays (sometimes over 20).

Interestingly, when they first undergo metamorphosis from the planktonic larval stage, Sunflower Stars only have five rays.  Then they add one more to make an even six.  After that they start adding rays in pairs.  So that's what you're seeing in this tiny juvenile.  

This process was first discovered and illustrated by William Ritter and Guilelma Crocker in 1900.  Below is a drawing from their paper.  It shows the first five rays (I-V), the sixth ray (A), and the two newest rays (small buds to either side of A).  Future rays will be added in a bilateral arrangement adjacent to the newest rays.  [Compare this drawing to the pictures above!]

 

Illustration modified from Ritter, W.E. and G.R. Crocker. 1900.  Multiplication of rays and bilateral symmetry in the twenty-rayed starfish, Pycnopodia helianthoides (Stimpson). Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci. 2: 248-274.

Before Eric found this tiny Sunflower Star, I had no idea that this is how they added their rays...and that William Ritter, the first marine biologist at the University of California and the founder of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was involved in the discovery!

One more Pycnopodia picture for you — an adult Sunflower Star, so you can visualize what this juvenile will become!

 

Just swell

I've been waiting for a morning like this — with a large, long period westerly swell and offshore winds. 

The waves were about 10-11 feet.  Swell period was about 16 seconds.  Winds were out of the east at about 14 mph (12.5 knots).  These are some of my favorite conditions for wave pictures on Bodega Head.

 

 

 

 

 

P.S.  Note that although some of these pictures are a little scary, they were all taken from a very safe place with a long lens.