Wrack Line 2018

Topping the foredune

Lost Dungeness trap buoy

Rubber balloon fragments aren’t too common in the drift line

Shotgun wads are common in the winter drift line

Clinocardium nuttallii

Tennessee Whiskey

Plastic debris is a big component of the winter drift

Softball

Cutting board | lot of stuff falls or is thrown overboard from fishing boats

A lost buoy’s colors obscured by a hairy coating of algae

Sea foam up in the big wood

A Halloween remnant

Sea foam and drift bull kelp bring nutrition to the shore

Suntory | a little nectar inside

A tangle of lost gear, big wood, and drift bull kelp on the backshore

Uh oh

Float

Color among the big wood in a dreary wrack line

Lost lubricant

Small dark glass bottle mostly buried in sand

Will ever remain a mystery

Drift line study

High tide and surf mobilizes big wood

Spin-N-Glo | Recreational steelhead or salmon gear

Sea foam on the backshore

Looking seaward from the foredune, only the seaward portion of the dune is illuminated

Sunrise lights up the foredune

A view into the distance- coast range, foredune, backshore, dry sand, wet sand, and the surf zone

Not much evidence of drifted material on the beach

Jelly fragment- I wonder what it is

Pacific razor clam, Siliqua patula

On wet sand, reflecting a bit of sunlight

Sea gooseberry, Pleurobrachia bachei

Drifted surfgrass, Phyllospadix

Clump of live Ammophila doing well on the backshore

Beachgrass, Ammophila, on the backshore

Sea rocket, Cakile

Trails of Alloniscus perconvexus on the backshore

Morning seascape, from high above the beach

The Lion at sunrise | What surprises does the drift line hold?

A lite driftline | feathers, eelgrass remnants, beach hoppers and their workings

Gull tracks around a Dungeness crab carcass

Drifted California mussel, Mytilus californianus, and haystack barnacles, Semibalanus cariosus

Cormorant

Drifted surfgrass, Phyllospadix

Drifted kelp and beach hopper workings

Easy to see why they’re called haystack barnacles

Drifted eelgrass, Zostera

Upside-down Dungeness carapace

Looking like a discarded plastic bag, a salp | perhaps Thetys?

Trace of a lone mole crab, Emerita analoga

Moon jelly remnant?

The Lion | South face

Eccentric sand dollar, Dendraster excentricus | Fragment

A surf zone sea stack

Common murre

Moon jelly | beach hopper workings around the margin

High tide isolates this sea stack

Rough keyhole limpet shell and drying eelgrass | Neither live on the sandy beaches, but here they are

I’ve always assumed this is the shell of the spiny pink scallop, Chlamys hastata

Rumex, pioneering onto intertidal sand | Probably Rumex maritimus , golden dock, seaside dock

Patch of salal at beach level in the foreground; beach and surf sone in the distance

Salal, Gaultheria shallon, will creep all the way down to the beach if Sitka spruce forest presides just behind it.

Northern fulmar

Purple varnish clams, Nuttallia obscurata dominating the drift line | Orcas Island, Washington

Low tide in Eastsound | Orcas Island, Washington

Drifted succulent seaweed exposed on a sandy, gravelly shore

A dab of drifted Sarcodiotheca gaudichaudii | Orcas Island, Washington

Washed up and exposed on a rocky shore; fresh condition

Dock or coonstripe shrimp, Pandalus danae | Orcas Island, Washington

Dead, upside down, exposed on a gravel shore

Kelp crab, Pugettia, probably P. producta | Orcas Island, Washington

Barnacles on a bleached clamshell in the mud

The object of interest here are the barnacles, Balanus crenatus | Orcas Island, Washington

Flowering sea rocket poking up through small driftwood

Sea rocket, Cakile maritima making a go of it in the wrack | Orcas Island, Washington

Empty limpet shell, Lottia, resting in the crook between Pisaster rays | Orcas Island, WA

Morning sunlight on Chondracanthus | Orcas Island, WA

Distant view of a great blue heron hunting in shallow water along the shore.

I’ll share the wrack line with a great blue heron any day | Orcas Island, WA

Two walking legs and a pinching claw, remains on a bed of Ulva

Helmet crab, Telmessus cheiragonus, met its match | Orcas Island, WA

From water's edge, the view north toward the head of East Sound. Rocky shoreline covered in Ulva and a bit of Saccharina

Low tide exposes Saccharina (some drifted, some attached) and Ulva | Orcas Island, WA

A drifted Saccharina blade on a bed of Ulva | Orcas Island, WA

A drifted Chondracanthus blade, Ulva, and Fucus | Orcas Island, WA

Saccharina latissima, I presume | Orcas Island, WA

a bleached clam shell with barnacles inside, crab carapace

This scene caught my eye | Orcas Island, WA

An intimate view of limp red blades on gravel

Low tide exposes Chondracanthus | Orcas Island, WA

Low tide on Orcas Island | View west, across East Sound

Holdfast attached to a small rock, stipe, blade, exposed on a bed of ulva

Saccharina latissima, sugar wrack | Orcas Island, WA

Pinching claw, Cancer productus | Orcas Island, WA

What will the wrack line hold?

Baby, almost transparent flatfish in a finger bowl

I have it on good authority…it might be in Pleuronectidae, the right-eyed blokes

Looking out over the sand and surf from inside

Low tide from Preacher’s Cave

Drift sea palm, Postelsia palmaeformis

little Olivella plowing through the sand at low tide

Olivella biplicata, snowplowing

Gull footprints

Drift Ulva

Gull tracks in the sand where they had been pecking barnacles on an adjacent rock

Gulls can’t wait for low tide to peck ate exposed barnacle beds

Pacific sardine, Sardinops sagax

Looking north toward Captain Cook's point

A sandy beach between headlands

Unidentified translucent white tube, on wet sand

Three inches long, if you know what this is, please let me know

Drift Desmarestia

a delicate red and a globular brown adorn drift black pine, of sand

Epiphytes on drifted black pine | the yellow balls might be Soranthera

Otter tracks, heading off toward the reef at the top of the image | river otters

A big rounded off log up in high intertidal rocks

It’s taken a bit of rolling to round off the edges

Morning stroll coming to a close

The beauty of low tide at dawn

A drift line dominated by spruce needles and mole crab molts

Sea foam, at times, is a major wrack component on the reefs.

A lone seaside plantain, poking out of a cobble and seas shell rubble

Seaside plantain, Plantago maritima, pioneering onto a wrack line rubble of cobbles and sea shells

Striped shore crab, Pachygrapsus crassipes | they love crevices in big high intertidal rocks

Ever lovely Macrocystis

Drift bull Kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana, and a side of Macrocystis

A good-sized beached jelly, over 30 cm across | has fried egg characteristics, so Phacellophora camtschatica?

From the swash zone to the spruce forest, drift Fucus, in the mirror

People in these parts call these cellophane tube worms, Spiochaetopterus costarum, what do you think?

A nod to terrestrial connections

Desmarestia

Gulls loafing, bellies full of crabs and barnacles

Signature workings, guess who | Olivella biplicata

I know some beach hoppers that are going to be overjoyed once this bull kelp find a resting place higher on the beach

Mostly dried surfgrass in the drift line, a little Zostera, a bleached Velella, and welk eggs

Epiphytic Ulva on a bull kelp stipe | note beach hopper workings in the sand

Feather boa, Egregia menziesii

Macrocystis pyrifera

Eccentric sand dollar shell

Sargassum

Surfgrass, Phyllospadix

Gull pellet | contents: gooseneck barnacles

Sea palm, Postelsia palmaeformis

Trace of Olivella biplicata plowing through beach sand

Olivella popped out of its burrow and started racing for…somewhere

Gull pellet | contents: rock crab

Gull pellet | contents: acorn barnacles

Drift feather boa

A drift line trifecta: bull kelp, feather boa, Macrocystis

A wad of eelgrass, surfgrass, a bull kelp stipe, pelagic goose barnacles, a bleached Velella

Drift line quiz: how many species do you see?

Drift Fucus and beach hopper workings

Beach to myself, except a gull eyeing me

Where’s this drift log from? The cliffs above?

“Congratulations” balloon, older drift Velella

Good-sized drift wood

Drift line mostly older bleached Velella velella

Unfortunate mole crab, , Emerita analoga | note the bright, freshly-yolked eggs

Dungeness carapace

Whimbrels all over the beach, hunting Emerita

Whimbrels eat so many Emerita eggs it turns their poop orange

Blue buoy barnacles attached to Velella velella

Blue buoys, Dosima fascicularis, on a spent by-the-wind sailor

Lone by-the-wind sailor

Too much of this

Mix of fresh and bleached Velella velella

Freshly arrived carboy inhabited by lots of distressed pelagic barnacles

California mussel, Mytilus californianus

Drifted Fucus

I’ve always called these tellins, but I’m not positive

There’s a seascape out there

Dungeness pinching claw

Bull-kelp nori, Pyropia, on a drifted bull-kelp stipe

Mostly blades on wet sand, stipe too, but holdfast blocked from view

Drift bull kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana

Drift line dominated by the partially bleached remains of drifted Velella velella

Lugged float

Northern fulmar

Drifted bull-kelp, Nereocystis luetkeana

Delicate red epiphyte on bull-kelp stipes

Almost washed away in the swash

Regugitated capitulum, Pollicipes polymerus | Gulls eat these and barf up the shells

Dungeness crab trap half buried in sand, exposed at low tie

This trap won’t fish

Rough keyhole limpet, Diodora aspera | just the shell, now go find a live one on the rocks!

What’s out of place here?

Circular tracks of Olivella biplicata in the sand

Olivella’s a show off

Carpet of drifted Velella velella

Ends a long float up in the cobbles on a bed of Velella

Shearwater?

Remains from a regurgitated gull pellet: plates from the capitulum, Pollicipes polymerus, goose-neck barnacle

More common in the drift line than you might think

Blu rubber boot with a clump of large pelagic goose barnacles on the sole

Got the hitchhikers to prove it’s been afloat awhile

High tide’s all about the cobbles and an early morning glow

Bait jar

a dried clump, holdfast and all, washed up on the cobbles

Strap kelp, Lessoniopsis littoralis, some people call it tree kelp

Fresh morning dog tracks

Intact dried clump, bright red, with holdfast on a cobble

I wonder if this might be bush seaweed, Scinaia confusa, just a guess

Feather boa, Egregia menziesii

When life gives you cobbles…

Sunset brings a falling tide and a glow

Waiting for a green flash

A sunset low tide reveals a sandy beach

Anticipation

Sea oats, Nucella eggs, Emerita fragment (lower right)

Pine cone, twig from a different conifer (both unidentified)

Couple conifers

Three ecosystems represented: forest (Sitka spruce), estuary (eelgrass), open ocean (pyrosome)

A round of Douglas fir, meant to be split for firewood

Meant to be firewood; what now?

Probably Corbicula fluminea, a freshwater or brackish clam | a drifted shell from a nearby river?

Shell fragment with distinctive chodrophore

Fat gaper, Tresus capax

Razor clam, Siliqua patula

The swash rushes out

Dungeness, Metacarcinus magister

Drifted bamboo

Drifter

Delicate blades of a red epiphyte on a bull kelp stipe | Perhaps Pyropia nereocystis?

Marine mammal skeleton, no head, bleached ribs pointing skyward

Your guess is as good as mine

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