Tag Archives: Anemone

July 11 and 12

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Ecological Notes:

  • I believe most of the gulls eggs have hatched, based on the nests I can see with one to three chicks and discarded empty eggs nearby. The gull parents feed fish to their young. I am impressed how many whole little fish a gull catch then regurgitate for their chicks.
  • I am seeing more nursing harbour seals and pups around the south and east sides of the island. Today, I heard a pup communicating with its mother by little grunting sounds.
  • This afternoon, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a river otter scurry along a path by Tank Shed. I could not see if it was heading for the water or underneath the boardwalk, as they are elusive.
  • See the photo gallery below for more ecological happenings from the past two days.

Weather:

  • Yesterday (July 11):
    • Sky: Clear
    • Wind: W 1-33 kts
    • Sea: rippled, then 2′ chop in evening
    • Temperature Low 11oC, High 20oC
  • Today (July 12):
    • Sky: Clear, fog between 08:45-09:30 with foghorn
    • Wind: W 16-39 kts, gusts up to 44 kts (81 km/h)
    • Sea: 1′ chop in morning, then up to 4′ waves in afternoon and evening
    • Temperature Low 12oC, High 15oC

Visitors:

  • Yesterday, Greg came from the college to refill the diesel tank.

Facility Work:

  • Scrubbed and squeegeed solar panels, routine tidying and checking infrastructure around the island. With the clear days, the solar panels have been fully charging the batteries.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve. There were much fewer boats today, with the high winds.

Here are photo highlights from the past two days. Click on the photos for larger views and captions.

Gentle Winds and Plentiful Wildlife

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Weather:

  • Visibility 15+ NM
  • Sky partly cloudy
  • Wind 5-10 knots N
  • Sea state: Calm

Visitors/Boats:

  • Yesterday Laura and Greg came at low tide to deliver fuel and for Laura to teach her online class.
  • Greg came this morning to deliver a load of fresh water which we pumped into our storage tank with the fire pump and hoses.
  • Today we saw a dive vessel in the reserve but no divers. They were fairly close to the wildlife but the sea lions did not seem particularly bothered.
  • One small pleasure craft hovered just outside of the reserve for the majority of the day. They were too far away to see what they were doing, but usually boats like this are fishing.

Ecological:

  • The small seal pup is still here, but she has become more adventurous over the past week. We have seen her napping on the east side of the island, and beside the decommissioned diesel tank on the west side.
  • The sea lion population continues to grow, and so does the smell! We will need to set up more fencing soon before they begin to take over the island completely.
  • The pair of crows that we have been seeing returned today and spent most of their day at Race Rocks.
  • We have continued to observe bald eagles in the reserve. We enjoy watching them swoop overhead and cause a stir amongst the seagulls.
  • One of the seals that we have been joined by over the past weeks was also spotted here in December (juvenile female V173). We are still waiting to hear from the researchers who tagged her to see if there is anything interesting to learn.
  • The elephant seals activity has been uneventful as they continue to moult. They spend their days napping and lounging on our “lawn” or wiggling down to the jetty to soak in the shallow water (and perhaps relieve the itchiness of all that peeling fur!).
  • At low tide yesterday we spotted many neat creatures in the exposed pool on the east side of Great Race Rock: urchins, anemones, crabs, fishes, chitons, barnacles, and tubeworms!

 

Bluebird Days

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Wind: yesterday 8-22 knots from E to N, today 4-17 knots from N in am and E to S in pm
Sea State: yesterday up to 1 m chop, today rippled
Visibility: both days 15 NM
Sky: both days clear
Temperature: yesterday 4-8 °C, today 5-9 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.53 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The past two days have been clear. That’s four bluebird days in a row. The sunrises and sunsets have cast everything in a golden light. The views have been incredible of the snowy mountains in Washington State.

There hasn’t been much new activity with birds or mammals. One of the male elephant seals has joined the sea lion cuddle puddle near the crane.

Yesterday evening, a pod of orcas were swimming a few kilometres to the northeast. They appeared to be heading northeast, in the direction of Victoria. It could be the same pod from the previous evening.

There were nine visitors to the island yesterday. Five Pearson faculty and staff came in the morning to tour the island and discuss learning opportunities for Pearson students on Race Rocks. Alex, Ric and his friend came to do an upgrade to the electrical system controls.

The military’s demolition training on Bentinck Island concluded this morning.

Today, three tour boats were in the ecological reserve. Yesterday, there were two tour boats and two members of the navy in a small rigid hull inflatable.

UPDATED February 26: photos have been added now that the website is fixed.

Elephant Seal Play-fighting

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15+ miles
  • Wind: 5-10 knots E
  • Sky: clear
  • Water: calm
  • Another spectacular sunrise!

Ecological

  • About 8 elephant seals on Great Race today. Six or so on Middle Rock.
  • A few of the younger e-seals (2 or 3 year old males?) spent much of the day play-fighting. Very entertaining to watch.
  • We seem to be down from 8 nesting pairs of Canada Geese to 7.
  • Observed a Giant Green Anemone (Anthopleura xanthogrammica) in the water. Very beautiful.

Maintenance

  • Spent several hours dealing with various Canada Goose themed activities.
  • Cleaned the solar panels.
  • Checked the tidy tank. 11.5″ of fuel remaining, down from 13.5″ on March 30th.

Boats

  • A couple of pleasure craft came by today. One appeared to be anchored quite close to the sea lions on the North-West side of Great Race.
  • Only one eco-tour came by today.

Pleasure Craft Today's only eco-tour

March 18 – Divers Clean the Underwater Camera

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Sunny
Wind: SW 5-14 knots in the morning, NE 5-9 knots in the late morning to afternoon, calm in the evening
Air Temperature: Low 7.8°C, High 10.7°C
Ocean Temperature: 8.8°C

Nine students came this afternoon with Courtney, Laura and Nazim to dive from the jetty. The seven divers were in groups of two and three for 30 minute dives. The others provided support from above.

Bader and Sean dove together and followed the cable out to the underwater camera, which lies at a depth of 12m of water out from the end of the jetty. They cleaned the plastic dome, which had become dirty with diatoms. See the photos below.

The divers mentioned seeing lots of vivid colours and amazing species including: urchin, anemone, rockfish, greenling, rose star and bull kelp.

Up on land, there was lots of vitamin D to soak up today while doing outdoor tasks: chopping firewood, stacking firewood, sweeping and tending to compost.

There was one fishing boat seen passing through the reserve today.

March 14 – West Wind and Waves

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Overcast and rain in the morning, sunny in afternoon
Wind: 1-11 knots from the W and N in the morning, 22-46 knots from the W from the late morning onwards
Air Temperature: Low 9.3°C, High 11.3°C
Ocean Temperature: 9.2°C

A gale warning in the afternoon, with winds gusts up to 46 knots, remained in effect for the rest of the day. The gulls had a hard time sitting and claiming their nesting sites when the wind gusts reached 46 knots. Due to the winds, the afternoon was filled with indoor tasks like cleaning, organizing the basement and drinking tea. The winds diminished in the evening.

Hanne Christensen, one of the visiting Pearson students, took some photos around the island yesterday and today. They are included in the gallery below.

Cribriopsis fernaldi: Crimson anemone–The Race Rocks Taxonomy

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cribrinopsis

This Cribrinopsis is one of the many anemones growing in the heavy current channels at Race Rocks. Photo by Dr.A.Svoboda

Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Cnidaria
Class Anthozoa
Subclass Hexacorallia
Order Actiniaria
Family Actiniidiae
Genus Cribrinopsis
Species fernaldi, (Siebert &Spaulding,1976)
Common Name: Crimson Anemone

It is worthy of note that this species went unnamed until just a few years ago. A.E. Siebert and J.G. Spaulding published in the Biological Bulletin 150: 128-138. ( February 1976)
The Taxonomy, Development and Brooding Behaviour of the Anemone, Cribrinopsis Fernaldi, Sp.nov.

“Cribrinopsis fernaldi is described as a new species of sea anemone from the San Juan Archipelago, Washington. This species is distinguished from the other members of the genus by the presence of approximately 96 tentacles and 96 pairs of mesenteries arranged hexamerously. The cnidom is distinctive and consists of spirocysts, basitrichs, microbasic p-mastigophores, and atrichs.
During March, freshly collected specimens of C. fernaldi spawned in the laboratory. The female anemones retained their eggs in the gastrovascular cavity and fertilization occurred internally. The embryos developed in the cavities of the tentacles and pseudospherules.
Some embryos were removed from the tentacles of the adult on day 1 (early cleavage), and day 7, day 13 (planula), and day 34. These continued their development and metamorphosed and settled at the same time as the larvae which remained in the adult until natural release. It is concluded that the brooding behavior is protective rather than nutritive in function.”

This file is provided as part of a collaborative effort by the students, faculty, staff and volunteers of Lester B. Pearson College
 Date:
2006		  Garry Fletcher

Urticina grebelnyi: Painted Anemone–The Race Rocks Taxonomy

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tealia-1

Ryan Murphy photo of this species.

In this video, the soft pink coral Gersemia rubiformis is highlighted. It grows at 7-10 meters over a 3 square meter area off peg #3. Other organisms shown in association in the same area are: Anemone- (both Tealia and Epiactis), hydroids, sponges and colonial ascidians .
Urticina grebelnyi
Painted Anemone
Urticina grebelnyi has previously been called ” Tealia” anemone. They are one of the most abundant large anemone at Race Rocks in the subtidal area. They use their nematocysts expelled from their stout tentacles for the immobilization of small fish, crustaceans such as krill and anything organic that drifts their way. Pieces of dead fish have been seen clinging to the tentacles. They are believed to live a very long time, as long as they are in an area well supplied with food by the current.

Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Cnidaria
Class Anthozoa
Genus Utricina
Species grebelnyi 
Common Name  Painted Anemone

Return to the Race Rocks taxonomy Index 

This file is provided as part of a collaborative effort by the students,
faculty, staff and volunteers  of Lester B. Pearson College 2006
Garry Fletcher