As a native Californian, I’ve been living with drought my entire life. Well, maybe not so much during the El Niño of 1997-98, but even then the thought “We have water now but might not later…” was always in the back of my mind. This season we had a great…
Month: February 2015
Perfection! And yet….
Thirty-one days ago, on 20 January 2015, I spawned purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) and generated six jars of larvae. I’ve been examining the larvae twice a week ever since. At first they were doing great, developing on schedule with no appreciable abnormalities or warning flags. Then, at about Day 24,…
Share this:
Wasting leather (star)
Until recently I hadn’t closely observed what it looks like when a leather star (Dermasterias imbricata) succumbs to wasting syndrome. When I had the outbreak of plague in my table almost 18 months ago now, my only leather star was fine one day and decomposing the next, so I didn’t get…
Share this:
In all her glory
This afternoon I was enjoying the sunshine and watching the small finchy birds flitting about in the big coffeeberry bush off our back deck. I call this bush the “conference bush” because every spring the birds congregate in it and chatter to each other like conventioneers. When the bush blooms…
Share this:
Off to the races!
Yesterday I drove up the coast to Pigeon Point to do a little poking around. I had originally planned to search for little stars, survivors that had made it through the most recent outbreak of wasting syndrome. But I got distracted by other things and gave up on the stars,…
