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| Clown Nudibranch (Triopha catalinae) |
The nudibranch was upside-down, clowning around, when I first spotted it. The poor thing was probably trying to keep its gills wet in an extremely shallow pool of water. I diverted more water to its pool, but it was still in a sandy food desert, so I picked it up in a mussel shell and moved it to a more diverse tidepool to wait out the very low tide of minus 1.7 feet at Glass Beach in Fort Bragg.
The tidepools at Glass Beach were impressive at such a low tide, and I wished I'd dressed appropriately for exploring them in more detail. As it was, I had to keep my shoes and pants dry which limited how far out I was willing to go. We stayed until the sun set and the full moon rose, a dramatic closing to an excellent afternoon.
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| This guy (possibly a white-spotted rose anemone, Urticina lofotensis) was snuggled in a deep recess of a huge rock, preventing me from getting any other visual angle on it. |
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| A very well-camouflaged mossy chiton (Mopalia muscosa), slightly curled up among pebbles, sand, and tiny bits of sea glass. |
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| This purple shore crab (Hemigrapsus nudus) was also very well-camouflaged. |
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| This tiny six-rayed sea star (Leptasterias sp.) was showing off its even tinier tube feet. |
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| The clown nudibranch in its new pool. |
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| This encrusting red sponge was a little one, but there were larger encrustations farther out. |
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| All the sea stars I saw looked to be in pretty good shape, showing no sign of wasting disease. |
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| Mussels and gooseneck barnacles share the bed. |
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| This ochre sea star seemed to have lost some of its grip after become exposed above the water line. |
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| This other tiny six-rayed star was showing off its underside. |
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| My wife asked me to photograph this hermit crab because of its nacreous shell colors. |
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| I just took it as a challenge to try to photograph this little tidepool sculpin. |
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| 2025: A Beach Odyssey |
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| I was interested in split between the dark aggregating anemones and the lighter ones that apparently lost their symbiotic algae. |
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| A conclave of crabs watches the sun go down. |
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| Farther out than I could reach in my street clothes, I had to let my Lumix superzoom do the walking. It has been years, I think, since I last saw bat stars and leather stars in the wild, and those are some pretty big purple sea urchins out in the open near an even bigger red urchin. |
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| The sea palms were pretty beat up, having peaked in spring and early summer. |
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| Drifting boat at sunset. |
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| Moonrise from Glass Beach |
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