Life on the Outer Coast

Friday, July 6
Light rain Wednesday through today.

Woke up this morning to a song sparrow singing on the roof. It was rummaging in the (very full of plant debris) gutter for food. It alternated between a familiar song sparrow song and one that started the same way, but ended in an odd sort of laugh.

One of the things that makes me sad about SJ closing is the loss of random collaboration. A diver brought some odd invertebrates and an amazing alga to the aquarium on Tuesday. Aaron dealt with the inverts and called me in to look at the alga. How will I find out about these oddities in the future?

The diver collected this alga from the subtidal (140ft) on the southeast shore of Fragrant Island south of town. I've never seen anything like and so I begged Dan to photograph the specimen so I could email the photo to S. Lindstrom at UBC. It wasn't familiar to her or other phycologists with whom she has shared the image. Now the specimen is in the plant press and a small piece is in silica gel so that Sandra can do some genetic work on it.
The diver said there were many individuals of the alga at Fragrant island, but he hadn't seen it elsewhere.

Found a yellow Corallorhiza in the class transect yesterday. The labellum was white and three nerved, but the rest of the floral parts were a light yellow.

Only two Marbled murrelets this morning on the way to town.