Walking the beach, down in the swash or up in the wrack line, I’m wondering what the rivers, currents, winds, and surf will bring to my home beaches. This year the drift was full of treasures. Some had human origins, and there were lots of items from marine and terrestrial sources too. Lots of carcasses, of course. Anything that washes up has a story. Here’s a sample of photos from my Wrack Line 2015 page illustrating what caught my attention in 2015.
Know your bony fish anatomy?
Western grebe
Crab buoy
Spotted ratfish
Black-legged kittiwake
By-the-wind sailor, Velella velella
American shad, Alosa sapidissima
Egregia meziesii stipe with floats
rat-tailed sea cucumbers, Paracaudina chilensis – from a summer beach cast event
Small pelagic goose barnacles on a Macrocystis blade
Shell barnacles on a Cancer productus carapace
Macrocystis has a float at the base of each blade
Stowable wheeled bed
Surfgrass, Phyllospadix
Taking the beach
Common murre
Larval stage, Thinopinus pictus, “see ya”
Sitka spruce cone
Cormorant
Dungeness crab carapace
Lot of of greedy ravens left those tracks
Beach hoppers rejoice – a drift line dominated by eelgrass, Zostera
Leymus, dunegrass, creeping down off the foredune onto the backshore
Cellophane tube worm casings, probably Spiochaetopterus costarum
That’s a glimpse of the 2015 wrack line though my eyes.
If you know what the pink worm-like creature is, please let me know. If you know somebody who might know, please share it around with my contact information; I’d really like to find out more about it. Only about 4 – 4.5 cm long, they appeared by the 1000s in beach cast events in northern Oregon and Washington this summer. Thanks
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Thanks for more of your beautiful photographs on life on the Oregon Coast.
You’re so welcome!
It’s so weird to think about that stuff floating around with us when we go swimming.