The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
October 22, 2015
Salish Sea, PNW
Some cool stuff in the bay yesterday, paddling slowly along the shore on a calm sunny day...
The shore:
Great Blue Heron found footage on a steep rock:
Purple Seastar! (Pisaster ochraceus) Very few of these this year after the epidemic decimated their population last year. Notably, the few I am seeing are healthy.
more wildlife in the bay after the tangle of seaweed....
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge and for better resolution)
A couple of dead floating Red Sea Urchins. These urchins live deep. Something knocked them off. Most likely they were lost in the haul of a commercial urchin fishing boat. Been seeing them nearby lately.
Moon jellyfish. These are less common around here than other jellies.
Madrona branches framing a Kingfisher nest hole in the sediment bank behind it. The headlands here are nearly all solid bedrock so the few areas of compacted sediment are popular for birds like Kingfishers that dig burrows.
This thing was attached to a big rock, under a slight overhang. About an inch long. An insect case? Anybody seen these?
Birds in the bay...
On the floating dock which is brought into the bay every winter to protect it from rough winds and waves: a juvenile Double-crested cormorant, a juvenile Glaucous-winged gull (not actually getting shat upon), and an adult GWG.
Adult and juvenile Mew gulls on floating driftwood and kelp:
Two female Hooded mergansers. Here's one:
I was hoping to see the two Western grebes I spotted a couple of days earlier. Westerns are very rare these days in the northern Salish Sea. Here's a pic I took on Oct 20:
Comparing it to the grebes I did see yesterday, you can tell the difference most easily in the beaks. Horned grebes (saw 5 of those) have a shorter beak,
and the Red-necked grebe (saw a pair) have a thicker beak. Unlike the Horned grebes, the Red-necks are still in breeding plumage (showing their red necks, while there's no sign of the Horned's colorful summer horns).
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All nature observations welcome in the comments.
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