Haines Wharf 1-1-13

 I take a walk from my house to Meadowdale Beach Park every New Years Day, depending on the weather.  This year it was a clear, frosty morning, perfect for a walk.  The walk takes me past the old Haines Wharf, slowly succumbing to weather and waves.  Two Bald Eagles are perched on the far right corner of the more modern boathouse.

Fall: On the Beach

It's fall and the Heerman's gulls again make their contrarian fall migration northward from Baja California to our local beaches and elsewhere along the northern Pacific coastline.  Other gulls are here, too, but my identification skills with the other gull species are not so good, especially with the juvenile phases and subtle seasonal variations.  The American widgeons are here and later in the winter we'll see other ducks, the red-breasted mergansers and the goldeneyes, common and Barrows.

I encountered several beached lion's mane jellyfish (Cyanea capillata), the largest known species of jellyfish.  Jellyfish usually die off this time of year as their food supply of plankton dwindles.

Harbor seals are the most abundant marine mammal in Puget Sound.  Harbor seal pups can be found on the beach in the late summer and fall, resting as mother forages.  People may come across a seal pup on the beach and think it is abandoned but it is not.  The pups must not be disturbed.  Seal Sitters is a volunteer group dedicated to the protection of marine mammals in the urban environment along Puget Sound.  I came across a Seal Pup last year but this year I came across one that was unfortunately dead.  Seal pup mortality is relatively high as I understand.

Glacial Erratics

I'm inspired to share my experience with glacial erratics from reading Dan McShane's blogpost A Really Big Erratic White Rock in Jefferson County (1/20/2011) and Dave Tucker's blogpost Appeal to Citizen Scientists: Do you know of any Jackass conglomerate erratics? I could probably safely say that I've known some erratic jackasses during my lifetime but have yet to find any Jackass conglomerate erratics.

For the layman, a glacial erratic is a large rock transported some distance by a glacier from the rock's point of origin to the point where the glacier leaves it.  The erratic is usually composed of  a different type of rock than the rock or geologic conditions at its resting place.  It often looks out of character with it's surroundings.  Identifying the erratic's rock type provides clues to its point of origin and the sense of the glacier's movement (i.e. direction, distance).


My first sighting of glacial erratics was during numerous hikes through the Sierra Nevada in my formative years when I lived in southern California.  The Sierra provide many opportunities to view alpine glacial landforms.  The photo below shows a glacial erratic near Carson Pass.

In spite of the dense tree cover and dense development, glacial landforms are much in evidence in the Puget Sound region, and this includes large glacial erratics.  I live within spitting distance of the Puget Sound shoreline along Browns Bay north of Edmonds.  My favorite erratic is found along the shoreline here.  Call it the "home erratic" if you will.  At the highest tide it is almost covered providing a safe perch for herons and gulls.  At the lowest of the spring tides the entire rock is exposed.  I'm told by a diving friend that similar large rocks exist just offshore here.  I'm inspired now this coming spring to chip off a piece to see what type of rock it is.

Relationships

At this time of the year, as summer wanes, the rim of Puget Sound is ringed in bright yellow flowers of Puget Sound gumweed (Grindelia integrafolia). The gumweed seems to thrive in the breezy salt air and sandy soil that fringes the Sound. It is a harbinger of fall and of the dull gray days to come.

The lives of gumweed and a drab grayish brown moth known as the Hooded Mountain Owlet (Cucullia montanae) are intertwined. It was the colorful caterpillar curled inside a flower that caught my eye as I walked the sandy flats at Meadowdale Beach.

The Hooded Mountain Owlet moth flies in July and August. The caterpillars feed on gumweed then pupate underground. There is only one generation per year.

Puget Sound gumweed ranges from British Columbia to northern California, seldom straying too far from salt water. It is a member of the sunflower family (Asteraceae), whose members include such familiar plants as dandelions and many others.

Farewell to the Brants - Beach Walk to Edmonds on 5-16-10

At least once every spring, when the low daytime tides along Puget Sound are favorable, I walk the beach from my house to downtown Edmonds, about a mile and a half.  Our house, though not right on the water, is about 700 feet from the shore as the crow flies, or perhaps a five minute walk up our street, then a right turn down another street.  Our neighborhood has a private access to the shore via an easement between two houses. The easement primarily serves as an access for the city to a sewer lift station.  The last hurdle is to cross over the railroad tracks and scramble down the rip-rap to the beach.  These tracks, owned and operated by BNSF, run along the shore here from Seattle to Everett.  These are busy tracks, lots of freight, Amtrak Cascades and Empire Builder, and the Sounder commuter train.  The neighborhood fronts along Browns Bay, a broad swath of a bay on Puget Sound that is rather open to to the Sound without much protection when the wind churns up the waves, such as they are on the Sound.

During the springs months, Black Brant (Branta bernicla nigricans), gather along the shore, fattening up on eel grass (Zostera sp.) before migrating north to their nesting grounds high up above the Arctic Circle.  Brant are a smallish goose, about the size of large Mallard.  Eel grass comprises about 95% of their diet so preserving eel grass habitat is important for these little geese.  I saw quite a few Brant during the walk.  Soon they'll be gone until next spring.

There's a local group here dedicated to protecting and preserving the Brant:

Washington Brant Foundation

At the southern end of Browns Bay is a large rock that is even large enough to appear on the Edmonds East USGS 7.5-minute topographic map.  It must have a name.  I'm sure the native Americans had a name for it.  The base of the rock is exposed only on the lowest tides and with it sea-life seldom seen in the open air.  A former work colleague who was an avid scuba diver told me that there are many more large boulders like this just offshore here.  Likely they are huge drop stones released from the melting glacier some 13,500 years ago at the end of the Vashon stade.

At one time, I believe a telephone line ran along the tracks.  Occasionally, I find the old glass insulators on the beach, some relatively intact, some well worn beach glass.

And always an abundance shells.  The carapace of the Red Rock Crab (Cancer productus) seems to intensify its red color in the drying sun.

A lone kayaker.

The USCGC Healy, US Coast Guard''s newest and largest polar icebreaker, commissioned in 1999 and berthed in Seattle.  Heading out for Arctic West Summer Cruise 2010.

Someone had arranged clam shells along this driftwood log.

The Washington State Ferry, M/V Puyallup, leaving Edmonds for Kingston on the Kitsap Peninsula, about a half hour cruise.

The Edmonds ferry dock, my final destination.

Pink Salmon

The bounty of the Pacific Northwest is unsurpassed anywhere.  Walking five minutes down to the shore of Puget Sound and landing a pink salmon epitomizes this bounty.  He was cleaned, filleted, and on the grill within an hour.  Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) run on a two year life cycle and here in our area it's odd years only.  This was an abundant year for "humpies" as they are known because of the distinct hump the males get upon entering freshwater.
Pink Salmon - Life History