June 15, 2009

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The day was sunny and warm, with a light breeze, and only a few other people were out exploring. The tide was low, giving us opportunity to explore the edges of the rocky shore. Much sand has returned to inlets and coves, and there are large areas of sand in various places on the flat, rocky shelves along the shore. Because of the low tide we were able to see large numbers of seastars clustered along the bottom of the rocks close to the water, more than we have seen in one place before. Mussels were thickly clustered on all rocks close to the water, and there were barnacles and limpets. There were many young barnacles on rocks even at the fringes of the intertidal zone, as well as many small snails. There were many fresh water pools, fed by seepage and runoff, full of tadpoles and water insects. We saw a large, open egg casing in a tidepool, which we speculated might be a skate casing. We sighted one whale close to shore, headed south at a good pace. Like last year at this time, there was not a lot of bird activity on the surface of the ocean. We did see 2 or 3 dozen pelicans skimming the waves, many gulls on the rocks at the south end of the mile, cormorants on the rocks and diving for fish in the water, and a few pigeon guillemots. A pair of oystercatchers was very territorial about one rocky area of the shore, and we assume there must be a nest there. We did see sealions on the rocks and in the water. We gathered some litter, of both marine and land origin, but overall the rocky shore was fairly clean without much visible impact of human activity. Like last year at this time the wildflowers were impressive, particularly sea thrift, foxgloves, wild irises, and seep spring monkey flowers.