Catch of the Day!

Speckled Seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus (juv.)

Seems like forever ago when this site last saw some action related to the briny deep...and while I can't promise deep, I can promise briny (but for deep, check out the blog from the MAR-ECO cruise to the mid-Atlantic Ridge--some whacky stuff they are finding!). After straining my memorization skills and trying to master the art of prophesying exam questions over the last several months, I have finally been freed up to do what it is I was born to do: play in the water! Despite being surrounded by painful jellyfish (Chrysaora quinquecirrha) and pinch-like-hell blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus), I've been having a grand old time splashing around. And besides, if the crab is going to pinch me, I'm going to eat its brethren...only fair, eh?

Typically, this time of year, I have been up to my eyeballs in pollinating reed canary grass, surveying some mighty fine marshes (or at least they used to be, anyway) and wishing the sneezing and eye itching would stop. The rare instance would arise when I'd get to squeeze some fish, and it would be even rarer if they were of the salty type. So, wasn't I just in my glory when I got to pull up some trawls today and find a treasure-trove of sea critters awaiting my inspection! Trawling is kind of like Christmas morning--when the net comes in, it's full of surprises. Of course, this is less so on massive surveys where seeing one more arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) or pacific ocean perch (Sebastes alutus) might cause you to jump overboard (the salty dude can attest to this, as he's spent 3+ weeks trying to keep himself in the boat). But my trawl was a simple little device that worked well without being overwhelming. In addition, when you are new to a system, everything seems cool...well, okay, maybe not the spot (Leiostomus xanthurus).

Lined Seahorse, Hippocampus erectus

Of course, some things are truly remarkable and I have to put the Syngnathids up there. These fishes include seahorses and pipefish. Of course, I had seen seahorses in aquaria many times before, but despite considerable effort looking in tropical seagrass beds on every vacation opportunity, I had, until recently, failed to find one live and in its own environment. My recent role as helper scientist had me donning the mask and snorkel and as I meandered about I saw a seahorse and lots of his relatives, pipefish! And it seems they come up in trawls relatively frequently, if not in great abundance, so I was thrilled when we pulled a few in today and I got to take some photos! Fun! Their prehensile tail is pretty cool and I could see it being quite a useful adaptation when trying to cling to eelgrass blades.

The other surprise catch was what I thought was Chesapeake Bay's version of the spiny lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis), the cutest fish of all time. But lo and behold, the lumpsucker is a cyclopterid (lumpfish, in the same group as lionfish, Pacific rockfish, and cottids: Scorpaeniformes). Our catch was identified as a spiny boxfish (or striped burrfish Chilomyclerus schoepfi), a Tetradontiform (pufferfish and triggerfish are also in this group). Whatever name you call him, he came out of the net all puffed up and we had to try awfully hard to get him to deflate to his normal size and bouyancy before letting him go. I do think my first photo, when he inadvertently rolled over, looks like something from Star Wars:

Upon righting him, his fins became apparent and he proved to be just another incarnation of the Actinopterygii.

Paean to the Firefly

It's been several weeks since the local fireflies began illuminating our yard with their pulsing glow. And, perhaps in the interim, I have become slightly obsessed with them. They are also a source of curiosity for the dog--what is this thing that lights up in front of my nose and then disappears? It seems like they have hit their stride in the last week, more abundant than in the weeks prior, the light show in the yard more showy. And so, when I saw the article in the NY Times tonight about researchers who actually study fireflies (how cool is that?), I figured I should finally put fingers to keyboard and punch out an ode to this amazing creature.

My previous post on the insidious insects in my garden notwithstanding, there are many insects I find fascinating: staphylinid beetles, luna moths, bees of any nature, chironomids (if only because I've looked at zillions in fish guts), lacewings. But the firefly has to be the most captivating of them all. I had kind of forgotten all about them until a few years ago when I was back in Maine at the right time. While the sight of the flashing yellow bug butts reminded me of my childhood, it was my best buddy's absolute amazement at them that really made me feel like a kid. See, the East Coast does have a few things that other Coast lacks...

So, a few weeks ago in my effort to get a closer look at the beautiful firefly, I grabbed some cake-sized tupperware from my parents' cupboard (I was there claiming free dinner), and scurried about the yard trying to capture a few--okay it was easy, they aren't good fliers...And thank goodness they aren't because when it got loose in the pristine environs of my mother's kitchen, I was quickly able to recapture it, although my hysterical laughing and insistence that everything was "just fine" was a dead give-away to the actual events that were unfolding. I got a good look at its bioluminescent abdomen and its striped elytra. Unfortunately, the camera/glass jar/cellophane photo-station my dad and I constructed was inferior for photographing insects, even the slow-moving, relatively photogenic ones. Even so, we had a good time constructing it, he trying to over-engineer it and me trying not to kill the little fellow (he did make a good point that it would be a lot easier if it was dead). I sort of felt like I was 10 again.

Birds, Bugs, Backyard Bonanza

Round about March when the days began lengthening and morning seemed appreciably earlier, we were amazed at the cacophony of birdsong outside our windows. Some of the calls I had heard before, but not since I had left New England for the West Coast. Some were new. All were delightful to listen to, reminding us of what a songbird-poor environment we had left! Now several months later, I'm beginning to see why so many songbirds can make a living here: bugs.

Gardening in the Northwest is great for a number of reasons: 1.) It never gets so hot that you don't feel like doing it; 2.) Everything grows; 3.) It's in the culture--some people need to buy new toasters or SUVs to keep up with the Joneses, others need a fantastic garden...and until now, I had failed to consider a 4th reason: a relatively pest-free environment. Sure, there were slugs and some cut worms (and many garden-reducing mammals), but nothing that would pepper an entire eggplant plant with bullet holes in one night, rendering its leaves photosynthetically useless (thank you flea beatles!). And there were so many aphids on our sweet peas this weekend, we think we lost the lot of them. Bummer.

I also have had more than one encounter with cockroaches, or in the local parlance, Palmetto Bugs, which just makes 'em sound as sweet as a peach pie! My first ever encounter with Periplaneta americana (or perhaps one of its relatives?) was when I had an apartment in Athens while studying abroad--they were gross and freaked me out--nasty sewer pests. They also were all over the place in Hawaii, but seemed slightly less threatening. Now that they are locally referred to as Palmetto Bugs, they seem even more benign. Admittedly, I do think of rural roaches as just one of the smorgasborgd of bugs, while urban ones have some sort of horribly fetid association. So, Palmetto Bugs it is.


At any rate, I have gone on several smooshing campaigns over the last few weeks, some being more successful than others--must keep up the fight! The bugs here are ruthless! Luckily, we do have some friends to help us out, namely all those birds and many frogs. One smart fellar has taken to sitting on the cross-member of our screen door where escaping light must provide an ample supply of phototactically inclined (or dazed) insects.

It's not all bad news in the garden either! I finished off the arugula harvest and started the basil and sugar snap pea harvest last night--combining the ingredients to make a delicious pesto for some homemade pasta! Yum! It was so green and fresh looking! I highly recommend the arugula/basil combination--the arugula gave the pesto a nice peppery spiciness to conteract the sweet basil!




After a rough start, Fygmalion, our Mission Fig, seems to be off on a blazing growth spurt. We had pretty much given him up for dead and labeled him DOA when the lemon tree we ordered at the same time flowered like mad and there was nothing but a stick of the fig. I guess we learned the lesson there: transplant shock doesn't mean death! Both trees seem to be doing well in their designated locations, the lemon filling the back deck with sweet smelling blossoms and Fygmalion leafing out in all directions.



The beans (green, lima, and scarlet runners) seem to be happy as well, as all are flowering, the scarlet runner beans already having set fruit.

The cucumbers (slicers and lemon cukes) have taken over more than their fair share of the garden space and are flowering like mad. Some of the flowers are even turning into spiky little cucumberlings already!

So, despite the bugs and torrential downpours, things in the garden seem happy and we are pleased to start eating the fruits of our labors. Save for the astronomical amount of hard earned cash we've spent on soil and soil amendments, the plentiful rain has kept our watering bill minimal and the ample sun has proven, once again, that "Through the miracles of photosynthesis, small plants will become large plants" (R.T. 2006).

Coastal Adventure

With the weekend suddenly freed up by a canceled class, we loaded up the rig and set our sites on points east, hoping to find some beaches to walk and a place to swim in some saltier water. We crossed the epic Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, saw lots of nesting osprey on the other side, and decided to check in at Kiptopeke State Park before venturing forth up the DelMarVa peninsula to explore various off-the-beaten path towns. With overcast skies and temperatures in the low 70s, there didn't seem to be a lot of pressure on the park--add to that the astronomical bridge/tunnel toll and the even more astronomical campsite fee (what ever happened to the 10 bucks to pitch a tent...and no, I don't need cable TV?) and we probably could have flown back to Seattle...okay, that's an exaggeration, but one night on the Eastern Shore quickly became spendy, even with the spartan accommodations of the aging (and leaking) EMS Isolation Hut!

After choosing out campsite (least of the evils: fewest full sized pick-ups and blue tarps next door), we ate some Farmer's Market grub acquired before leaving 'Billsburg while sitting on the beach and telling the pup she wasn't allowed to run free. After attracting every no-see-um on the beach, adding to my already pock-marked feet and ankles, we called it quits and got on with our adventure. We hit Cape Charles, Exmore, Wachapreague, and Onancock before getting out to Chincoteague. 

Well, not so fast. As it turns out, the DelMarVa Peninsula is about the most dog-unfriendly spot we've ever been to! Our four-legged buddy was not pleased--promises of long walks on the beach and salty furs, were quickly turning into too much time in the cargo-hold trying not to step in her water bowl or overheat. It seemed, as we approached Chincoteague (after passing the NASA alien-listening devices), that the island was much more God-friendly than Dog-friendly, judging by the numerous Jesus-oriented billboards on the way over the marsh (perhaps it should have been a sign?). But we wandered through town and made our way to the Chincoteague/Assateague gateway. 

So, you see, not only are dogs not allowed on the beach at Chincoteague, they aren't even allowed in cars in the parking lot on the USFWS Refuge! Good thing we drove all the way there! They can take their stinkin' ponies (there's more than a little irony there, as the ponies the US Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to protect are no more native than the grazing cows destroying the refuge I used to use as a field site--or our car-bound canine, for that matter!). Certainly I understand the need to protect wildlife, which would be fine, if the Refuge system actually focused on native species. But it just seems a bit contrived, this whole "protecting the ponies" thing and all. Good grief. Anyway, there was a whole heckuva lot of very nice salt marsh...so we'll remember that and go back to bird watch another time. 

And we did find a great beach closer to home with no tent site or expensive toll needed, so we'll be returning there to turn ourselves into lobsters once again.  The water is warm enough to swim--and had it been warmer and sunnier (well, okay the sun obviously was strong enough to do some damage), it would have been very refreshing! G did not like her 'peeps frolicking about in the water--she would try to swim to us and then get freaked out and go back to shore anxiously awaiting our return. She did like rolling in the sand and then brushing her soaking, sandy body on me and my beach towel to dry off--it resulted in a big mess and a lot of laughs. In the end, we all had fun, even the furry beast, who consumed more than her share of sea water....ooopsies.

Why Did the Turtle Cross the Road?

Photo from Massachusetts Department of Fish and Wildlife

...I don't know, but he was headed toward the Montessori school, so I'm sure they would have given him several options to choose from. Yes, the turtle really was headed toward the school, but happened to be smack dab in the middle of the two yellow lines on a busy roadway when another driver and I stopped to rescue him. Not sure why he was headed to school, as he was coming from the direction of a perfectly good wetland, but perhaps he sensed some higher calling-it happens to the best of us.

My turtle identification leaves a little bit to be desired, and as it turns out, there are lots of options for these parts. I narrowed it down to a few possibilities and after figuring he/she wasn't a snapping turtle, it seemed a Northern Red-Bellied Cooter (Pseudemys rubriventris) was the next best thing, since not much else gets to the size of this one (~12" from stem to stern, of the shell, that is). Since these guys take 15-20 years to reach maturity, I would guess this one was pretty old. Also, as it turns out, this species is listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act--hopefully safe passage to school will yield fitter offspring, but I'm not really sure it works that way in the turtle world.

At any rate, it was a good wildlife sighting--especially on the way to work!

And, once I again, "I like turtles!"

The Great Geoduck Hunt of 2009

Geoduck:

Pronunciation:

\ˈgü-ē-ˌdək\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Lushootseed (Salishan language of the Puget Sound region) gʷídəq

Date:

1883

: a large edible clam (Panopea abrupta syn. P. generosa) of the Pacific coast that usually weighs two to three pounds (about one kilogram) but may attain a weight of over ten pounds (4.5 kilograms)

And there it begins....

So, one of the annual rites of summer is the Bounty of the Sea party hosted by our good friend, in a location unlike any other, and so full of beer and sealife it's amazing no one ends up with food poisoning...because after all, all sealife looks delicious after several beers. And lucky for us, we just happened to be in the area when the low tide dipped to -3.4' exposing all sorts of intertidal wonders, and making for prime geoducking.

The great thing about the late spring/early summer low tides is that they fall smack dab in the middle of the day--bad if you're a little eelgrass plant (Zostera marina) trying hard not to dry out waiting for the incoming tide, but ummm, ummm good if you're out to dig halfway to China in search of a phallic-looking clam (and incidentally, the antipodal point to our geoduck grounds happens to be somewhere between S. Africa and Antarctica, and not China at all). While the breeze was fresh, the air temperature wasn't bad and our bellies were full of breakfast, so we set out for the hunting grounds with tools of the trade and some beers for the clam bucket.

The first task in hunting the goeduck, is to locate a siphon sticking up in the sand. Our preferred location happens to have a mixture of horse clams (Tresus spp.) and geoducks--differentiating between the two can be tricky, but our well-trained party had it down (and I'm not about to divulge all the secrets here). Horse clams make for fine clam burgers, so in the event of a mis-identification, not all is lost (and the secrets aren't that secret as there is plenty of available information on how to dig geoducks). Horse clams also tend to be a little easier to dig, yielding higher success rates and cleaner, drier clothing. A couple of intrepid diggers from our group pulled 7 out of a single hole--that's some persistence!

Once the siphon is located, the "tube" is placed around it and pushed into the sediment. At this point the furious digging begins (I don't know that speed is critical, it just makes for a more dramatic pursuit). It helps to have a few looker-on-ers cheering you on and critiquing your digging--think public works project, but with a lower budget.

If the beastie is deep, it becomes necessary to employ advanced techniques, including finding a really tall dude with 6' long arms to reach in the hole. In the absence of said character, contortionism plays a good role in wrangling the siphon and then shell. It's important not to cut the siphon during the digging process or you will be ridiculed during extraction--the best dug 'Ducks have intact siphons, showing off all their overstuffed glory.


And if all goes well: success!

They are kind of awful looking things, but they taste pretty alright and go nicely with cold beer. This year's haul also included plenty of mussels and steamers and some tasty clam burgers. Not bad for a few days of fun.

Outside of sticking the rental Versa in a wetland, the trip was a big success. We got to hang with our 'Peeps and feel like we were back in our own habitat. Spending some time collecting salty seafood was just the ticket for spending a remarkably lovely weekend in the PacNW. We missed having the Salty One out on the mudflats with us, be she no doubt enjoyed her time at the familial dog spa.

Getting Out

In between visiting, beer drinking, and digging clams (more to come on that later), it seemed that a good way to enjoy my time back in the Emerald City was to get out of the Emerald City. And so, with borrowed dogs, car, and hiking partner, I set off for a day in the Cascades. It's been a few years since I had done Lake 22, but remembered it being a pretty good early season hike, with lingering snow and some nice flowers...I apparently failed to remember that it had stunning views (I think it may have been foggy/cloudy the last time I was there). And at 2.7 miles and 1,500' up to the low-elevation (2,400') tarn, it's a good bang for your buck--always a plus, given finite time. The area is right below Mt. Pilchuck, one of my favorite easily accessible Cascade day hikes, but being nestled into the side of Pilchuck, Lake 22 affords an earlier approach. That being said we still found plenty of snow!

The area was set aside in the 1940s for research, so the trees are big and the forest looks more like the Olympics than the Cascades, with lots of grand Bigleaf Maples (Acer macrophyllum), ferns, and lots of moss. The first 2 miles are all forested and we were lucky that the bugs didn't find us and that there was plenty of fresh water for the dogs to slurp up! We missed the trillium by a bit, so only saw leaves, but there were some other wildflowers that were starting to show their little heads. As we approached the lake, the snow got pretty thick and I was grateful for my loaner hiking poles, given the lack of tread on my shoes! It was warm and there was a lot of melting going on, so some of the snow bridges resulted in a pole poke, a soft step, and crossed fingers hoping they would hold...kept it exciting! Twenty-two Creek was beautiful, with snow still along the banks, the striations showing off layers of winter accumulation.

As we sat at the Lake and enjoyed lunch and a Simpler Times, we saw small avalanches tumbling down from Pilchuck's flanks. Even at the great distance we were at, the sound was incredibly loud, like thunder claps and then rumbles. We sat in the sun for a while watching the spazzy pup chase snowballs, and then decided to make our way back down. As we rounded the first corner we heard a huge crash and realized we got up 2 minutes too soon and missed a huge show! Oh well. It was a beautiful day to be out enjoying a hike, with a view of some real mountains!

The Salty Dog's arch nemesis, Stella. SD would have liked the hike, but not the airplane to get here!