MILE 215 on 5/5/12

There was a fair amount of woody and vegetative debris, but the only human-made objects I found were small plastics (<20 mm), which in places were concentrated with densities of 10-30 per square foot along one of several high tide lines but in other places they were none. I have found such small plastics every month on this beach, so this is not new. It is unclear if these particles are new to the beach or have been redistributed on the beach with wave action and sand movements. I was under the impression that bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) is an annual (http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/pugetsound/species/kelp.html), and large piles of bull kelp are regularly on beaches here in fall and winter, particularly after storms. So I was surprised to find a very large bull kelp pile with several Western Gulls that were pecking at food items in it. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I came back with a meter stick (for scale) and a camera to document the large piles of bull kelp and some Macrocystis. This intertwined bull kelp pile had many intact holdfasts, stipes (stems), and bulbs (floats) with attached leaves. There were at least 2 other smaller piles, but although I focused on these for my photographs, they were rare. More common were scattered single bull kelp plants. In the biggest pile, the stipes, bulbs, and some of the leaves were very fresh, and at first I thought that this might be this year's growth until I more closely examined the underside of holdfasts where they would have attached to rocks or other substrate and saw that they were covered with small gooseneck barnacles, which indicates that the kelp had been free and floating near the surface for a long enough time that gooseneck barnacles colonized the underside of the holdfasts. Only in the largest clump of bull kelp did I find the large gooseneck barnacles that had shells that were about 4 cm long. Some of the bull kelp stipes and upper and undersides of holdfasts also had other material growing on them that suggested they had been floating in the ocean for a long time. Some of the single bull kelp stipes and leaves were partially decomposed.

SUMMARY

A fair amount of woody and vegetative debris on beach, but no large human-made objects. Continuing small (<20 mm) plastic particles are present in some high tide drift lines.

OBSERVER

R Bayer EMAIL • REPORT PUBLISHED 5/6/12 8:46 PM

PHOTOS

Pile of Fresh-Appearing Bull Kelp
Description:	Western Gull attending Bull Kelp pile and pecking at food items in it.
Date:	05/05/2012

Underside of Bull Kelp Holdfast Showing Gooseneck Barnacles
Description:	The gooseneck barnacles as well as some other invertebrates shows that this pile of bull kelp had been floating in the ocean for an extended period of time, even though the kelp looked fresh.
Date:	05/05/2012

Large Gooseneck Barnacles Attached to Bull Kelp Stipes
Description:	Large gooseneck barnacle showing some of cirri "legs" that were extended. Many of these large barnacles were clearly still alive and moving their "legs" in and out. Although one of the stipes (stems) looks light brown as if it is decomposing, others were not badly decomposed.
Date:	05/05/2012

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