Return to the Reef

Seal Cove Reef

I hadn't really planned to visit tidepools again so soon, but who can resist a minus 1.8-foot tide that's timed to let you sleep until it's light out? My plan was to head north this time, to either Duxbury or the reef below the Palomarin trailhead, but I ended up choosing the far shorter drive to Fitzgerald to save on gas.

The harbor seals once again did not realize which part of the beach has been closed for them, and a park ranger had to herd a bunch of us a hundred yards away from each of the groups on the reef in the aptly named Seal Cove. One of the groups appears on the left side of the image above (as usual, click images to view larger).

The most striking feature of the reef this morning was the wide swath of seaweed that covered quite a bit of the beach to a depth of maybe half a foot. It was interesting to walk through the slippery sea of weed with no idea what lay below -- whether smooth sand, jumbles of rocks, pools of water, or nests of sea serpents.

There was so much beautiful algae on the beach that I had to prod myself to get out on the reef. I roamed around for quite a while without finding any nudibranchs (always among my favorite prizes) and had to remind myself not to let the lack of slugs detract from the fascinating beauty of the tidepools. I know we're supposed to hate purple sea urchins, except in sushi, because they gobble up kelp forests, but they are so gorgeous in a tidepool, especially when the sun comes out. I couldn't remember the last time I went tidepooling on a sunny day. 

I mentioned to the park ranger that it seemed like sea star wasting disease was still a thing despite what I've heard about a comeback, but he said he's counted thirty in a day. I'm not sure that actually constitutes much of a counterpoint to my observation of seeing so few. Fitzgerald used to be crawling with several kinds of sea stars, including bat stars, leather stars, spiny stars, and the brilliant sun star, but now I feel lucky to find one or two ochre sea stars that haven't begun turning to gelatin.

Colors & Textures in the Wrack

Glassy Pool

Snail with Hat

Waning Gibbous Moon

Giant Green Anemone

The Naked and the Cloaked

Red & Purple Sea Urchins

White Spotted Sea Goddess (?)

Possibly Doriopsilla albopunctata

Basking in the Sun

Rough Around the Edges

Sculpin in the Pebbles

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FZ80 Biking

Pollen on the Chin

Pneuma is the Greek word for wind, breath, spirit. I like how the word zooms in from the world at large (wind) to the personal (breath) to the metaphysical (spirit). The wind was a force to be reckoned with while I was pulling mustard weeds on Twin Peaks yesterday with good folks from the California Native Plant Society, Habitat Potential, and the parks department. The work was good for my spirits, but the wind gods wanted my hat (and finally got it in the end). The forecast was for more of the same today, so I headed out to Mt. Tam on my ebike in the morning before the pneumatics went gymnastic.

I went up to see how my camera trap was doing, and to get a little more practice with the new point-and-shoot camera, a Panasonic FZ-80. All in all, I think it went well. The camera is certainly way more versatile than the one on my phone. Click on the pictures to see them bigger (1300 pixels wide).

Pelicans Riding a Thermal Above Sausalito

Morning on the Sausalito Waterfront

A Red-breasted Nuthatch at Full Zoom

Yellow Mariposa Lily

Copulating Water Striders

Basking Salamander

Hummer in the Leopard Lilies

Stinging Nettle

Gray Fox Frame Grab

Foxes in the Camera Trap

Biking the Bridge

$7+ Supreme

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Rock Spring Loop

Summer Hills

We started our hike from Rock Spring at about 7:30 this morning and had to hold onto our hats as we leaned into a chilly wind to climb our first hill to the Old Mine Trail. We hiked down to pick up the Matt Davis Trail near Pantoll, then walked through the forest and out onto the sinuous slopes of Bolinas Ridge, then cut off at the Coastal Trail where the Matt Davis heads down to Stinson Beach. We got all the way to the vista point shown above -- just shy of the Willow Camp Fire Road -- before we encountered another human soul.

We encountered other souls before then, from a fat-bellied fence lizard with a cockeyed tail, to a young velvet-antlered buck in the company of a much smaller (possible) sibling. The buck craned its head up into some branches and fed briefly on bay laurel leaves, and we later saw a gray squirrel scurry up a tree with a bay laurel nut in its mouth. We also saw a couple of large mushrooms, an Agaricus sp. and a grisette, and heard numerous warblers: yellow, yellow-rumped, and wilson's, plus warbling vireo. Also hermit warbler and hermit thrush, as well as trilling Pacific wren and gobbling wild turkey.

On the last leg of our loop we encountered a group of young people on the Cataract Trail who might have been part of some kind of biology class. They were all gathered around someone who had just found a forest scorpion under a rock.

Fence Hugging Lizard

Blacktail in Velvet

Farallon View

Make Me Dizzy

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