fall weather is.... nice?

indeed it is and because of it i'm enjoying my last term in charleston. here are some of my favorite moments/places. many more to come of course.

boat trip for oceanography

exploring restoration sites in the upper south slough
cottage #2
oimb beach cape arago pycnopodia with kenta and sara

watching the sunset post tidepooling. check out those nereocystis beds...

glass kelp? yes please.
oregon coast aquarium
north of florence with kenta and annie

stay tuned for a crafting/sewing post!

Portland Saturday Market

Really you must go if you never have. Wine tasting, fresh bagels, interesting fruits and veggies and of course beautiful flowers.





Some of this came from the family garden as well...

At the bottom of the lake

Overall an epic trip: lots of thunder clouds, much swimming, the tragic loss of the infamous pink sunglasses, sun rays, drinking at noon, water skiing , bad shuffling, dinos and curtis beating up the 8 year old...

Charleston

We love the mecca, not always the mudflats, but certainly on the last day of the term. Yep this is Summer in Charleston...

spineless soiree!

sooo... check out the sweet lemon dorid nudibranch costumes i whipped out. also annies sweet sponge that i assisted.

Best in show: tegula snail. carolines reaction... "wait. is that what I am supposed to be?"
anna as the dinoflagilate
parasitic isopod in a jelly
3/4 of group six: best group in show!
the party glasses made an appearance
creeper jana and her super long barnacle penis.
sad rhinophores
me as the rare tree dwelling nudibranchnudibranch creeping
awkward nudibranch
sponge...mmmmm
i heart annie and her 3 oscula
we are bringing the nuid costumes back to eugene for some fun stuff.

Cape Blanco

in other words: best field trip of the term!

My friend Annie with a ring spotted nudibranch

one of many epic shots on this epic field trip

Some bryazoan (white leafy looking things, also an animal) growing on some red algae

Special kelp that likes to live in sand scoured communities. It drops its blades and grows them back if they are damaged.

My other good friend Kaleo with a super sweet pycnopodia.

a tinnie tiny little nudibranch of the opalescent variety

decorator crab

that's all for now!

the crow walk

I've turned super nerd...

1. I heart seaweed and really want to take a phycology course. This was taken at about 7am at middle cove right about when the sun was breaking through the clouds. There are at least 10 species of seaweed here.
2. I also really enjoy pressing seaweed. I've made some very pretty stuff so far.

3. I love my xtratufs as usual.

4. I like waking up early on my day off to go tidepooling. Here are some leafy hornmouth carnivorous snails we found yesterday. Annie and I had read papers on them earlier that week. It was a rather exciting moment.

5. I enjoy surveying quadrats early early in the morning. Here are some Onchodella (small sea slugs) we found them after some serious searching.
6. I've mastered a mean crow impression. And if you are lucky you can bear witness to it at some point.

My friend and I are doing a project comparing the leg length to body width ratio of Pisaster at Middle cove and on the boat docks to see if they develop differently based on wave exposure and their ability to hold on.

Here is a shag rug nudibranch. hehe! They ingest anemone stinging cells called nematocysts to protect their soft bodies from hungry predators.

Here is an example of succession in a empty patch of mussle bed. I am going to do field work on these patches at South sunset and various other locations looking at patch size and the species that settle shortly after they mussles are ripped off the rocks (usually by wave action).