July 2007 · 3 November 2007, 12:58 by Julie Loyd
07.jul.01 Donna A: Plankton Tow Field Notes. Fred and Donna left the dock in the Rufous at 14:35 and returned 17:15. They picked up equipment and Bill C in Mail Bay and did four tows performed for five minutes at 800 rpm. High overcast with occasional sun breaks. Very light to no wind.
First tow: Mail Bay 14:20 Start N 48º 42’ 179” W 123 00 385
End N 48 42 059 W 123 00 451
Towards 3 1/2 minutes, rowing across Mail Bay N to S. Resulted in a gelatinous, fluid, sticky, gooey, brown muck in excess. Three people was a handy number to have: Stan, Winnie, Bill C.
Second tow: Severson’s 15:19Start N 48º 43’ 134” W 123 01 573
End N 48 43 076 W 123 01 856
Seal in the water, five otters (three little ones) running up beach. Bald eagles being chased by two gulls. Five boats fishing, one had a fish on. Large number of gulls in the water, not diving.
Third tow: North Bay 16:00 Start N 48º 42’ 620” W 123 02 770
End N 48 42 494 W 123 02 913
One cormorant on buoy. Negligible current. Several pigeon guillemots.
Thirty gulls on Sandy Point spit. Two cormorants flying NE.
Fourth tow: Dock 16:31Start N48º 41’ 207” W 123º 02’ 270”
End N48 41 040 W 123 02 326
Small fish actually at the surface, no jumpers. Two bald eagles in two trees. Less gunky specimen collected.
Fifth tow: TNC 16:51Start N 48º 41’ 761” W 123º 03’ 018”
End N 48 41 793 W 123 03 265
Wake wash periodically very green. Several pigeon guillemots fishing. Fish at the surface breaking surface but not jumpers. Bubbles 30’ inside A’s moorage.
07.jul.01Glen R at Cowlit: 12 pm noon, low tide, water glassy, mostly sunny, about 70º. Still approx 40 salmon 4 – 6” northwest side of dock, lots of 3 – 7” herring around. Thursday (June 28) thousands of them around.
07.jul.03 Josie S: I saw six blue herons in a group, mid-afternoon. They were stalking the shallows of the incoming tide, below the TNC trail access, Cowlitz Bay.
07.jul.04David L: 9 am. Apparent salmon ripples halfway to Mouatt at least.
07.jul.07Stan W at Cowlitz: 18:00 Wind about 6 – 10 from South. Fish from about 15 yards from tide line to end of dock up to about six inches, although I saw a couple larger about five feet down. The school was about five feet deep – saw lots of flashing.. I could see bucktails on several near surface. No jumpers. Two Glaucous Gulls, one Pigeon Guillemot, two Crows carside near Post Office.
07.jul.08 Julie L 9:00-10:30 at Friday Harbor Labs dock with Dr. Joe Gaydos, who was doing necropsies. The Marine Mammal Stranding Network gets calls about dead animals, or Wolf Hollow gives them ones that have died or been euthanized, and Joe takes samples of various organs and tissues. The purpose is to get a picture of the health of the Salish Sea by looking for parasites, infections, and toxin loads in the seals and porpoises that they analyze. While we were at the dock, pigeons were building nests under the dock and schools of what someone said were gunnels hung in the water. You can see from the photo that seal innards are much redder than farm animals’ because they need to store more oxygen in their hemoglobin for long dives.
07.jul.12Julie L at Cowlitz: 18:30 Record heat yesterday, cooler today. At least two fledgeling Violet-green Swallows in nestbox on dockhouse. David says Purple Martins are nesting at Roche Harbor, but he doesn’t know of any here. Barn Swallows under dock. A brief look around dock area reveals no fish.
07.jul.13, 7-9:30 am Winnie A: There were two barred owl fledglings hanging out at the T making baby owl utterances and sitting. I saw them twice while getting milk from Isa or Rolf. They have not been there this week.
07.jul.13: Sue B: There are a lot of dragonflies at my place, more than I’ve noticed in previous years. They fly around in the afternoon sunlight, eating something carnivorously. (To identify your dragonflies, go to http://www.ups.edu/x6518.xml – jl.)
07.jul.13: Gretchen W: We used to have barn swallows here but now we have violet-greens. At 17:30 there was a small flock of banded pigeons on the bird feeder and a small flock of cowbirds on the ground near the feeder. At 19:00 there were several black-headed grosbeaks, a goldfinch, red-winged blackbirds, a male purple finch (rosy red), a banded pigeon, and cowbirds.
07.jul.14: Glen R at Cowlitz, 11:00 Very low tide, temp appx. 75º, wind <2 mph, sunny, scattered cirrus clouds, water glassy, good visibility. Violet-green fledgelings in second nest from dock. Saw about 15 Pigeon Guillemots this side of Point Disney, flying from nearshore water to dock. Saw about two dozen 3 – 5” salmon scattered at six feet + apart around dock, picking at surface, bugs or whatever might be interesting in about 6 – 10’ of water. Also small school <10 striped perch, about 300 herring West of dock.
Julie L: Ryan D did a beach talk at C’s from 9:30 to noon. Fuller notes are at http://thewhelk.org/news . We looked at seaweed and three kinds of clams. It was chilly in the shade, with scattered clouds overhead and a mist rising from the tide flats. Low tide was 11: 50 ish.
At noon, I went to Hammond and back for the COASST beached bird walk. Sunny with scattered clouds, about 70 degrees, no wind, mist on the flats. It seemed as though more sand has recently been laid on to the beaches. Towards Fishery, about 100 gulls and 20 crows were scavenging along with a bald eagle that was waddling around. 10 – 14 sports fishing boats moved from Fishery towards Skipjack. Two flatfish, about 10”, were fresh dead at the high tide line. There were lots of dragonflies at Hammond, but no swallows, ducks, seals, otters, or gulls. An adult and a juvenile eagle flew by more than once, perhaps several of them.
At the Point, the sea thrift blossoms are done with and quite crispy. Yarrow is blooming, as well as some kind of leggy thing with dandelion-like flowers.
I walked around in the cove, disturbing lots of silver-dollar sized flatfish. Flat red seaweed was growing on lots of the eelgrass there, and sargassum grew around the edges of the eelgrass. At the H’s beach access road, Shawn was moving logs and I waded in to the water to look for sargassum amongst the scattered eelgrass. Sure enough, it was there, along with an occasional plump 6” fish that darted into the eelgrass. The tidal current was really strong going eastwards.
On the walk through the forest, the salal is at all stages from blossoming through green berries to purple berries. Fireweed has been blooming for some time. Yellow dandelion-like plants are blooming.
At 21:18 as I write this, it’s early dusk. Swainson’s thrushes are singing from the woods surrounding our clearing.
07.jul.15 Julie L: David and I did a plankton tow in Cowlitz around 12:30 noon.
17:00 at Cowlitz Cloudy, muggy. Three inch fish jumping by big rock towards Disney, many pocking surface, making bubbles. A big swoop of crud marks the tide change. On the other side of the crud, near the dock, are what I think are herring because they flash but don’t jump. Took a plankton sample.
07.jul.16 Fire Workshop.
David L at Cowlitz: 11:00 Big feed frenzy begins at Disney side of moorings and traveling up current towards Sand Point. Lots of bubbles, lots of surface feeding by herring, small (juvenile salmon size). Stay beneath oily sheen. Water surface sampled, but spilled on way home – bugs for sure. Don’t know if this is previously recorded or even accurate, but kelp seems especially strong along Disney this year.
14:00 At dock. In addition to ample small herring, a school of small juvenile salmon travel overhead (surface) probably chum (distinct black dorsal and tails) One weird fish like herring, greyish from above and RED dorsal and nose – go figure.
14:45 Massive herring feeding like this morning starts again, throughout moorages, SE side of dock. SAMPLED surface in active feeding area A mooring/ SAMPLED inert feeding L mooring (surface). – visible apparent prey.
This feeding banded in currents, amorphous without current at 2:45. Also, small (3×4’) cloud of apparent juvenile sand lance at float 2:30. Hypothesis – juvenile herring, working inshore just outside where the tiny juvenile salmon (±2 – 3”), 1 fathom and shallower, may be competing for same prey.
07.jul.17 Julie L: 6:45 am: Rain, mid 60’s, small wavelets, ebb tide. David and I did plankton tows for all baseline bays plus out near Skipjack (to see whether there is a different number of plankton outside the embayments – and yes, there is a lower concentration). At that time of day, there were a few baby seals and adults, and most of the bays had some kind of juvenile fish. Pigeon Guillemots were concentrated at Disney but appeared, usually in pairs, elsewhere. Glaucous-winged Gulls were concentrated at Sandy Point but appeared singly elsewhere.
Later in the day, David said that Cowlitz was crowded with juvenile herring and, above them, juvenile salmon feeding. He dipped a jar into the water where the fish were feeding and another jar where there weren’t any fish. In the evening, Isa and I looked at those two samples and found 42 calenoid copepods (right) and a cladoceran in the sample from the feeding area, and nothing in the sample outside the feeding area. This is significant for two reasons. First, it is virtually certain that both the herring and the salmon were feeding on calenoid copepods. Second, the zooplankton were in one spot and not another, suggesting that some kind of drift cell was at work.
Glen R at Cowlitz:16:00, Partly sunny, 65º, water glass, 3/8” rain last night, mid flood tide (high at 9:30 p.m.), excellent visibility. Some 200+ salmon 3 – 5” south of dock, 3 – 4 schools, some thousands of herring, 2 age classes, 1 age class is 2 – 4”, other age class is 5 – 8 inches. Two otters around dock.
Steve B saw a seal two weeks ago at Point Disney with a 2’ salmon.
07.jul.19Julie L at Cowlitz: 16:45, heavy rain yesterday, sunny right now, over 70º, water rippled. 3 – 5” salmon from water depth of 4’ out to surround dock, at about 3’ under surface. Herring deep, under the salmon. One dragonfly, swallows under dock.
07.jul.20 Gretchen W: There’s a dead seal pup on the beach south of Bill Carlson’s private dock. It’s a gravel/cobble beach. We heard it crying earlier in the week. Typically, it takes a few days before the birds can get into a seal carcass. Vultures and eagles are predating this one, but there aren’t any ravens there yet.
Julie L: Our cat brought us a bat. See http://www.batsnorthwest.org/basic_bat_FAQs.html for some bat information.
07.jul.21 Julie L: 10:45 Cowlitz dock, foggy, over 60º, clearing to a misty, drizzly afternoon. 40 people gathered with Tina Wyllie-Echeverria to test three kinds of nets and learn gastric lavage. There a large, slowly moving school of seals, 46 or more of them, outside of the mooring buoys moved slowly east to west. I thought one of them was a dolphin but Camilla pointed out that as some of them swam along the surface, they were sideways and holding their flippers up. A baby seal was just above the high tide line on the PO side of the dock, looking alertly at us, not crying. Its ribs were showing. (It was dead on July 29).
First tow with beach seine: three kinds of sculpin (buffalo, shortnose, staghorn) Second tow: 2 juvenile chinook and others, gastric lavage on 104 mm one. Fyke net: Caught nothing. Purse seine at dock: 5 shiner perch (80 – 94 mm), 11 sand lance (one at 104mm), 2 kelp crabs. Mike C provided five crabs for a late lunch.
07.jul.22 Jannik R: Those big yellow striped chafer beetles have hatched.
Julie L at Cowlitz: 17:00. Drizle, no visible fish. Seal pup still at beach. Kingfisher.
07.jul.23 Julie L: 15:15 Cowlitz dock, sunny, over 70º. Fish are speckling the surface everywhere! From the float, we can see a school of perch, some small, some big, what could be salmon, and zillions of herring, feeding ripples everywhere. There is a zooplankton bloom, of 1 mm things that we looked at July 17 and decided were copepods. They have a single “antenna” with a red blob on the end of it that sticks out at an angle to the right. By the float, these oodle at about 40 per square inch on the surface. There are also about 5 crab megalopae per square foot further down to about 1 foot. That cute little baby seal finally died today. Out near Disney are about 25 pigeon guillemots.
07.jul.24Camilla L at Cowlitz: 18:00 Sunny, sea flat, no wind. Craploads of fish. Also some krill or crab larva. Fish jumping all over the place. They seem to jump in waves starting at one end of the school and moving to the other.
07.jul.25 Julie L at Cowlitz:12:30 Tight school of 1,000 3” herring East side of dock, low. Dragonflies and swallows flootering around. No gulls or guillemots visible. Three human swimmers, though.
18:00-21:00 Severson’s Cove, sunny, over 70º. Lots of no-see-ums, no mosquitos. Tide’s rising. The eddy formed in front of Babs’ house for about 20 minutes had big gobs of yellowish foam on it. Fish started jumping near sunset, and a couple of people were fishing from the beach. Glen R, they said, caught a silver there last week. An otter swam from C’s and went up the beach at the wetlands outlet east of R’s. Babs said that otters might raise two sets of young in a summer, since the family that swims by now seems considerably younger than the ones that appeared here earlier in summer. Or maybe it’s just a different family.
07.jul.27 Julie L: 14:00 – 20:00, Cowlitz, hazy sunshine, 71º, very faint breeze. Low tide at 10:32, high at 6:38. A small group of locals met Tina and Russel to test our new salmon net and do gastric lavage. We did three tows, one at the big alder towards Disney and two at Frances’ Cove. Each yielded juvenile “chinook.” (Later DNA tests revealed that most of the chinook were some other kind of salmon including steelhead) You can see details at http://thewhelk.org/news.
There were two very interesting results. One was that the salmon were from 69 to 116 mm long and with or without adipose fins (wild or hatchery). Apparently juveniles school up with whoever else is where they’ve individually decided to go. The second was that their stomach contents were not uniform. Two had swallowed juvenile sand lances, one 1/2 and the other 2/3 the size of the salmon itself. Others concentrated on what looked like shrimp, crabs, or copepods. I’d thought you could lump all fish dining preferences together but apparently not.
Madrona Murphy saw the aspen and said when they’re gnawed by beavers they regrow prolifically. The first shoots are high in tannic acid, which repels beavers, and then the acidity goes down. It’s symbiotic. Alder groves are often clonal, and when one is at the end of its lifetime, they all die. Winnie said that aspens grow at W’s beach, the volleyball court, and somewhere on the Hammond cliffs.
After the workshop, Anthony B said they’d moved a dead crow from the dock road.
07.jul.30 Julie L: Emily and I went to Hammond and back for the COASST beached bird walk, from 12:30 – 15:30. Sunny, over 75 degrees, no wind, mist on the flats. We counted 18 beached lion’s mane jellies, from 10 cm to 40 cm. There was one great blue heron, two crows at the clay flats, and two gulls. We waded from the clay flats to Hammond, seeing perch, flatfish, eels, sculpins, shore crabs, and a 20 cm floating chiton. There was some kind of circular growth on the kelp. A kayaker told us that, beyond chest depth, there were thousands of 5” fish, possibly juvenile salmon. At Hammond, there were about 5 more gulls. We heard an eagle, saw a couple of murrelets on the water, and saw the splashes from where seals were smacking the water in the distance. Seal pups called from Bare Rock.
07.jul.31Glen R at Cowlitz: 15:30 Sunny, clear. Wind <1 mph. Temp 75º+. Just after nine minus low tide. Water visibility excellent at least down to 15’ around dock. At least 10,000 herring around dock mostly to South side 4 – 6” some juvenile salmon. Also 4 – 6” (1) school had about 300 in it – looked like chinook). One big Lion’s Mane Jelly (15” diameter). Also one school Pacific Sand Lance, approximately one thousand – about 3” long, on West side of dock. Sand lance scared of other schools some.
Fledgeling Barn Swallows around. Three seagulls, two Pigeon Guillemonts. Herring really like it under eelgrass.
Camilla L at Cowlitz: 17:30 Lots and lots of salmon. All summer there have been hardly any red jellyfish but today we have seen at least seven in only ten minutes.
Julie L at Cowlitz: 17:30The water’s full of zooplankton. The fish are jumping like crazy, sounds like rain. They’re maybe 5”.
18:30We saw the following plankton, just by staring: crab megalopae (about .75mm), arrowworms (chaetognaths, 2 cm), comb jellies, baby other jellies, fish (2 cm), and dots.
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