And now for something completely different

We took a break from protected waters of South Slough to help Dafne with her larval barnacle and mussel collection at Cape Arago. The pump wouldn't work properly at the second site. We spent a very long time trying to make it run though. I wasn't being much help so I picked up the camera to record the unfolding events. We did get out ye 'ol plankton net and did a couple of tows back and forth along the surge channel, which seemed to work just fine, and is much much easier than dealing with the loud, stinky, heavy pump!

Guest story by Jer Hendersen

In between early mornings and afternoon prep activities, Hacker lab field assistant extraordinaire, Jer, likes to crank up his laptop and plug away on his novella. I hadn't read any of this work until this trip - its good stuff, including many gripping stories about fishing and getting into trouble with stupid evil park rangers. And so I commissioned a short story about our adventures with macroalgae during the last field excursion. I did wonder what he was up to, typing away in the corner for much longer than I expected for a short story. What emerged, and what is posted here, is only the beginning of said story. He didn't even get to the real macroalgae caper! But instead, he sets the scene, with what I hope is a sarcastic and amusing tale of my use (and abuse) of his field prowess.



There are few things worse than getting up at four in the morning to go muck about in the estuary, unless it’s getting up at three in the morning to go muck about in the estuary, which is exactly how the week started.

“You ready to go, Jer?” Margot asked as we sat at the table gnawing on dry toast, wishing we had peanut butter.

“Mmmpphh?” I replied, rubbing my puffy eyes.

“Good. Here, drink this coffee.”

I reached for one of the two mugs she had just filled with scalding hot brew, but before I could grab it she pushed the other mug out for me.

“No, no. This one’s yours.”

“…Uh, why is this one mine?”

“Because this one’s mine.”

“Huh...”

We finished up and got in the car. On the ride out to the site I began to perk up and notice things; mainly that three-thirty is still too early for the sun, though not too early to do fieldwork.

“So what are we doing today?”

“Macro-algae additions.”

“What’s that involve?”

“Oh, clearing plots, counting shoots, collecting algae, taking redox, you know, all the fun stuff.”

“Huh. Doesn’t sound too bad.”

“No, you should go fast.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”
“Um, are you going to help?”

“Yeah, yeah. But you’ll go fast at your part.”

We pulled into the dirt parking lot behind the local bar, geared up, and trudged through the mud out to the site. At the first plot Margot gave me a brief run-down of the procedures, demonstrating how to do everything under the glow of our headlamps.

“So you put your quadrat down, stake out the corners with the PVC…” She began as we kneeled there in the cold mud. “…And then you count your shoots, trim around the edge, and sort the macroalgae out and put it all in these bags. Once you got that done, you just have to go collect two-thousand milliliters of algae, tuck it into the plots, stake it down, and then do the next one. Got it?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”
“Alright, well go ahead and get started.”

“Um, what are you going to do?”

“Redox.”

“Um, it seems like this might take me a while.”

“No, no. Once you do a few you’ll get faster.”

“Uh, okay…”

I plunged my hands into the icy water that was left sitting in puddles atop the mudflat from the receding tide.

“This sure is cold…”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll warm up in a minute.”

“Uh, maybe we could wear gloves or something next time.”

“Gloves aren’t in the budget.”

“Oh…”

As I was counting the shoots I noticed my hands starting to shake. Things didn’t seem quite right. I was beginning to feel a little funny.

“Margot, I think your coffee’s a little strong or something.”

“Yeah? You waking up?”

“Um, yeah, but my hands are beginning to shake.”

“Huh. Maybe we need to drop down your dosage.”

“Dosage?”

“Oh, I mean amount. Amount. Well give you less coffee tomorrow.”

“…Uh, okay.”

I finished up the shoot counting and moved onto gathering two-thousand milliliters of macroalgae. The algae stunk, and I had to stumble all around in the soft mud to find enough, but after a few hundred stinky handfuls I figured I was finally done.

“Do you think this will be enough, Margot?” I asked, showing her the pile lumped in the bottom of a dirty plastic bucket. She shone the beam from her headlamp on the mass and pondered it over for a second.

“…Hmmm… Doesn’t look like quite enough. Maybe we’ll have to do four-thousand.”

“Four-thousand milliliters?”

“Yeah.”

“Won’t that take a while?”

“Hmm. Yeah. Maybe you could run. And try not to take so much time rubbing your hands together. You’ve got a lot of sites to do.”

“Um, okay, but they’re kind of cold.”

“Yeah, yeah. They’ll be alright. Just work faster and they’ll warm up.”

I went back out into the darkness and tried to stumble around a little faster as I collected another two-thousand milliliters of macroalgae, but the mud was so soft I kept getting stuck. I thought I was doing pretty good, but then Margot hollered across the mud at me.

“Jer, you’re not running.”

“…Oh. Sorry Margot.”

“Don’t be sorry, just run.”

“Uh, okay…”

I finally finished the plot and moved on to the next one. I kept tripping while on my macroalgae sprints and getting all covered in mud. I tried to wipe the mud out of my eyes, but my hands were so dirty it just made it worse. On my forth plot, I noticed things starting to get light as the sun came peeking up over trees, kissing the beds of eelgrass and making them glitter. I looked over at Margot to see how she was doing with the Redox meter. It looked like things were going well for her as she stood there, daintily poking the probe into a plot a few thousand milliliters of macro-algae down the line. She scribbled down something on her data-sheet and then pulled the probe out, rinsing it down with a squirt bottle before giving her hand a quick douse where a spot of mud had splattered on it. I noticed she looked really clean.

“Jer, you doing all right over there?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Hmm, because you’re not working.”

“Oh, sorry.”

The next plot went faster, and the next one faster than that. Soon the sun was above the tree line, and everything was going fast. Things were spinning. I felt real anxious. I could count really quickly. It began to seem like I was counting, collecting, and consolidating all at the same time. Every time I finished a plot I was really sad I had to leave it, but every time I started a new one I was really excited about the possibilities and new horizons. I had a good conversation with a dead clam. He was really long winded though, and I had to carry him around to six different plots while he finished his story. Before I knew it, the tide had flooded us out and we were back at the truck peeling off our waders. I told Margot all about the plots and how much fun it had been. I really wanted to keep at it.

“Yeah, I could go back out there with my wetsuit and finish up if you want. I really like working. Working’s fun. The macro-algae stinks but when you squish it in your fingers and the water comes out you really feel like you’re doing something good for the world. People don’t do enough good for the world. The world’s really big. Have you ever been to Idaho. There’s not many people in the world who’ve been to Idaho, but I’ve been to Idaho. One time-”

“-Here Jer, drink some water and take this vitamin.”

“Vitamin? I used to take Flintstone’s vitamins when I was little. They tasted kind of like chalk, but it was a good kind of chalk, not like writing chalk. We should get some chalk and draw on the sidewalk later. Maybe we could make a-”

“-Yeah, yeah. Take the vitamin.”

I took the vitamin and started drinking the water. It tasted really good.

“Are you going to take a vitamin.”

“No I already took one.”

“Oh. Maybe you should take two. You can never be too safe, though sometimes too many vitamins can be bad. Maybe two is too many. There’s too many two’s. There’s too, and to, and two, and nobody can ever-”

“-Yeah, yeah. You ready for a treat?”

“A treat? I like treats. My dog likes treats. Have you met my dog? She’s-”

“-Alright, let’s go out for a treat. How about coffee and doughnuts.”

“Yeah, I like coffee and doughnuts. You know what else is cool, space shuttles. It’s crazy. I mean they go, like, way-way up there and float around. Space is really big. I think it’d be sweet to be an astronaut. I bet there’s one floating up there right now.” I said, finally stopping to take a breath as I pointed at the sky. I looked over to see if Margot could see where I was pointing, but she had rudely left in the middle of our chat and was already buckled in and firing up the truck. I ran around to my side and hopped in. I thought about how great seat belts were as I buckled in and told Margot all about how great seat belts were, along with all sorts of other things. By the time we pulled up to the little quaint deli that sat next to the Salvation Army’s soup kitchen I had told Margot just about everything I knew, and was starting to get exhausted.

“Man,” I said as we got out of the car. “I’m getting kind of beat.”

“Yeah, you feeling a little sleepy?”

“Kind of. More just exhausted.”

“Oh good. It’s working.”

“What’s working?” I asked as I reached for the door to the coffee shop.

“Hmm? Oh. Nothing. No, no. Not in there.”

“What? I thought you said we were going for doughnuts and coffee.”

“Yeah, but paying for food’s not in the budget. Besides, you can’t beat the conversation at the Salvation Army, can you?”

To be continued......


Jeremy Hendersen is a senior undergrad at Oregon State University. He likes to tie flies, catch fish, release fish, drink beer, write, grow miniature vegetables and is fascinated by the introduced Zostera japonica's potential ability to compete with the native Zostera marina. Below is an example of his fieldwork, after one tide. This macroalgae addition plot appears to be doing very well with 4000 milliliters of macroalgae stapled to the sediment, and nestled between the eelgrass shoots.

Trip Highlights

We were back in Coos Bay last week, doing some eelgrass monitoring, and setting up for a macroalgae addition/exclusion experiment. Here are some photo highlights amidst many early morning tides and boat excursions to snorkel the sites. The Gatehouse: this is the cute little cabin I have rented for August in Charleston. Our lab truck (Big Red) looks like it dwarfs the cabin in this picture, but it really is quite roomey, and with a loft to boot. Sunset from the Gatehouse: offering spectacular views of Coos Bay proper, and refreshing sounds of lapping waves (and the fish processing plant around the corner and U of Oregon students heading to the beach fire).
Danger Point "poking": A fun activity, "poking" in the eelgrass sense of the word involves jabbing a hyperdermic needles (or alternatives: pencil #2, crab arm) into the sheath of the eelgrass in order to set a mark for use in future growth measurements. Unfortunately "poking" may be quite hazardous, especially at Danger Point, where unconsolidated sediment makes for tricky movement and slippery shoots that are easy to pull out of the sediment, not to mention the chance of infection after the occasional self-poke. Macroalgae Treatments: The Gatehouse also offers Turkish Towel (aka Chondracanthus exasperatus) spa treatments after hard days in the field. This drift algae likes to float into the marine eelgrass sites that I'm monitoring, but can be caught fresh while snorkelling the local kelp bed. Producing a nice lather, the Towel was used by Jer (shown here) as an alternative to the more commonly used cleanser, soap.
Until next week's report from experiment week in Coos Bay, bon soir!

P.S. we also managed to grab some eelgrass and mud from Yaquina Bay for the tank experiment at Hatfield, and catch an amazing Rufus Wainwright concert in Portland. I've been sleeping since then in an effort to release my mind from an eternal dazed state.

Coastal Transect

I completed a personal coastal transect last week, from Vancouver (typical Jericho Beach shot above), to southern Oregon (cloud-shrowded Cape Blanco below)/northern California, and back to Coos Bay.
The drive south was necessary to pick up help for an estuarine excursion that same day. John and I made it back to Coos around 5 and headed straight for the skiff. We were able to measure water column light, temperature and salinity profiles at three sites in the estuary, as well as collect water samples for nutrient and chlorophyll analyses at each site.
We sampled the estuary on the same day as PISCO's coastwide Coastal Transect sampling. PISCO's large coordinated effort collects water samples from open coast sites from Oregon to Northern California monthly throughout the summer. Hopefully my estuarine sampling can be used to show some evidence of marine connection into estuaries, as well as to show the water column conditions above my eelgrass monitoring sites, and differences between sites in Coos Bay. The sampling that I did, with a YSI probe and a Licor meter, is in addition to permanent sampling conducted in the estuary that measures similar parameters. The permanent monitoring , however, does not measure light (PAR - photosynthetically active radiation), which is a key variable controlling eelgrass dynamics. Next time around, I will be able to get out on the water before dusk for some better PAR measurements!
John and I finished up around 9:00 and then processed the water samples in the lab. Ravenous, we tried to get food at the local pub, but were quickly left as the bartender wouldn't even offer us a hello, let alone fried food. We settled for granola, and then quickly crashed, after a long day on the road and boat.

Dr. SEED recap

No time for blog posting during the 7-day field excursion to Willapa Bay, WA (with a quick side trip to Netarts Bay, OR on the way home). Too many early mornings (5:30 am), afternoons spent biomass processing and entering data, and trying to stay awake via massive cappucino intake and walks on the beach. John, Jeremy and I made it back last Thursday, and Sally was with us for the first 3 days of the trip. We had a great time, and data collection was fruitful. We are very grateful to Sally, who is in full support of our coffee needs and camping gear requirements - after a stop at REI we now have the most deluxe car camping kitchen ever assembled!

from the top: 1) pre-coffee, 2)post-coffee, 3)even Jackson is addicted,5) in case one method should fail

Beach walks

The Willapa project is a bit of a side project for me - looking at the effect of dredge oyster aquaculture on eelgrass. For the time being I refer to this projects as Dr. SEED (Dredging, Seeds and Eelgrass Demography). Funding for this work comes from WRAC (Western Regional Aquaculture Center), who has been funding this project for the past five years. The general foci of this research, spearheaded by Sally, Jen Ruesink (UW) and Brett Dumbauld (OSU/USDA) has been to understand how different types of oyster aquaculture affect various aspects of eelgrass demography and ecology. Lori, my former labmate, looked at early life stages of eelgrass (i.e., seeds and seedlings), and their success in different aquaculture types (i.e., hand-picking oysters from the sediment, attaching oysters above the sediment along lines, and harvesting oysters with a dredge). My current project is to look in greater detail at dredge aquaculture, and how it affects the various life stages of eelgrass (adult densities, flowering shoots, seedling and seeds). To do this we are going to follow these life history stages through time at three sites in Willapa Bay which are subject to a range of physical conditions: Stackpole, Stony Point and Nemah. Unfurling/untangling the GRID over a dredged bed

Sampling along the DRID on an eelgrass reference bed

Each of these sites has an oyster bed that was dredged this past winter as well as an adjacent contiguous eelgrass bed that we will use as a reference bed. We want to know how fast eelgrass can re-colonize these beds post-dredging, how the demography of eelgrass in dredge beds compares to that of the reference bed and how other physical and biological characteristics of the dredge beds may affect their recolonization potential. This research is important as it will provide greater information to oyster aquaculture management about the effects of dredging; specific to the eelgrass populations of Willapa Bay.

Fieldwork consists of unfurling and positioning da GRID (masterfully constructed at CRS in a hot-tub) on the ground. This is repeated three times in each dredge bed and adjacent reference bed. We sample sediment and eelgrass at all the cross-hatches of the GRID. All the GRIDS are aligned in the same orientation so that in the future we may be able to extend the sampling unit to other areas of the dredged beds. These beds are permantently marked and will be re-sampled throughout the next couple of years, during different seasons, to catch all the primary life history stages of eelgrass.

Ok, enough with the explanations, I've also posted a bunch more pictures with captions here: http://picasaweb.google.com/margothl/07_07_01_WillapaDrSEED
Most photos curtesy of John and his fancy new camera.

Canadians take Long Beach, WA

July 1st, 2007
1 Canadian and 2 in training scout the beach situation for their Canada Day takeover.They conquer enemy soil (sand).The participate in traditional July 1st Canadian activities.They make friends with their nemeses.

A Mess of Macroalgae

I've made it back to Corvallis and am ready to crash. I had a productive past tide series though! I collected a ton of biomass samples, both eelgrass and macroalgae. I'll continue to take these samples monthly throughout the year as part of the monitoring part of my study. I'm comparing sites of varying marine influence, and think that the huge quantities of macroalgae (mainly green ulvoids) that I find in the marine sites may have an affect on the eelgrass growing at these sites. The monitoring is necessary to establish the seasonal patterns and site differences before I start doing experiments and other analyses.

So anyways, I spend a lot of time picking away at the macroalgae in the eelgrass beds, collecting samples from 5 quadrats at each site. It gets a bit tedious when the macroalgae crumbles or is composed of tiny little pieces or is embedded in the mud. But, I had fancy new blue industrial glooves to work with (to keep my hands warm and protected from unknown gunk in the mud) and the weather was great so I didn't mind the self-inflicted task. Processing the samples was another deal..... Luckily Dafne showed up to do recon for her project and helped me sort the stuff for an entire day! This consisted of emtying my samples into buckets, scooping out handfuls, getting rid of all the sediment, worm casings, dead and dying inverts (poor baby Dungeness crabs!) and pieces of eelgrass. Then we'd squeeze as much water as possible from the samples, categorize the macroalgae into different types (ulvoid species vs. drift red red and browns), fold them up into nice little aluminum foil packages, and take a picture and wet weight before freezing them for later determination of dry weight (biomass). Some samples took almost an hour to sort through, which made for some incredibly long days.

Thank god for long summer evenings and help! Dafne was a good trooper and sacreficed her afterrnoon for the cause. And I somehow convinced John and Jeremy (Hacker lab techs extraordinaire) to stop off en route North to help me count eelgrass this morning (that's another story, which already has a dedicated poem... to be posted later). If they hadn't showed up I'd probably still be in Coos Bay covered in eelgrass-diatom juice. Time fore bed, this is going to be a good one, ciao, Margs

The Meandering Moon Snail

One of my field sites, Fossil Point, is outside the main channel of focus for my study. Its in the main channel of Coos Bay, not South Slough. I'm keeping this site because its really close to the mouth of the estuary and also has very high marine influence (somewhat of a replicate for my marine site). I'm not sure if I really need this site in terms of data collection, but its a cool spot so I'm keeping it for the time being. Once you get beyond the smell of the Dairy Queen (just down the street) and way out on the mudflat, there's always an unexpected find. If you recall from a past post, last time I was out here some clammers asked me about the i.d. of a moon snail. Well, it was still here this time round, making its way, slow as a snail, to deeper water. Ok, so there's a chance that it wasn't the exact same snail, but I think it was, guarding my transect line. Its large foot was extended like a sail, reaching into the strong shoreward breeze. It was making no effort to concel itself underneath the plentiful eelgrass beds, and it wonder if its brazeness was do to its gigantic proportions. Its so incredibly huge that I wonder what birds or other predators would be able to eat it. After photographing this beast of a snail from every possible angle I helped it down to the channel edge where I presume it was headed. Here's a chunk of a short storythat my mom wrote which features the moon snail:


"It’s all about survival”, says Bill, as he slowly stretches back to a standing position. “Competition. Reproduction. Predation. Moon snails are a good example.”
He peers into the muck of the nearly drained lagoon. “Moon snails are in the same phylum as most of these bivalves, mollusca, but they’re in the gastropoda class. That means ‘stomach foot’”. He looks around, and then squishes further into the disappearing lagoon, boots sucking against the suction of the mud. He walks back towards us carrying a rubbery band that looks like a small inner tube, and holds it up for everyone to see. His voice slows: "This is the egg collar of a moonsnail."
The sunlight sparkles the life ring like diatoms glimmering in a honeycomb incubator. Bill’s voice softens and slows, "At high tide in mid-summer, these egg cases will crumble, releasing thousands of eggs." The class straggles to the edge of the stream following Bill.
Nobody speaks.
He lays down the collar, and begins to prod gently around a round protuberance in the sand, then more quickly digs into the gravel around it. The snail moves like a softball in a very slow pitch, trying to dig itself down, but Bill is too quick. He holds it aloft on his trowel, cupping it with his other hand. The foot of the snail jelly-rolls underneath, slimy and translucent and enormous, extending beyond the circumference of the shell. Bill’s voice is solemn as he points to the gelatinous mass: “The foot motors the snail along, and it digs to avoid predators and unwelcome events such as this.”
The class is in a trance.
Bill holds up the shell. “Moon snails are carnivores. This thing,” he slowly turns so everyone can get a good look, “will hunt down molluscs, like clams, snails and mussels, and surround them with their foot, this gooey underneath part.” He’s talking faster now. “Then it drills a beveled hole through the shell of its prey with its radula, inserts its proboscis, and yum, yum, yum…”
Sophie winces, holding up a clamshell with a hole in it. “Is that what happened to this poor clam?”
Bill walks peers at the clamshell. “Yup, you can always tell whodunit by that beveled hole. That’s the moonsnail’s signature. The drilling can take hours. So if the prey escapes, and is recaptured, the moon snail will drill in a new place. If you see shells with several holes, that’s probably what happened.”
The night of the living dead. This round, benign shell, with no visible teeth or horns or poisonous antennae, is a predator. It consumes almost everything we've observed.
Sophie asks the question I’ve been thinking, “But why isn’t the moon snail a bivalve? Why is it round instead of flat? What makes the shell go around like that?”

“It’s because of something called ‘torsion’, says Bill. “When it’s growing, one side of the larvae grows more quickly than the other, and twists around 180 degrees from the rest of the body. And look at the shell – it’s much smoother than those oysters, you see, so it can burrow down into the mud.”

But Bill’s snail has other business. Thousands of tiny eggs are pressed together with particles of sand, wrapping its shell in a rubbery collar. Bill gently strokes off the sandy outer layer, and the egg casing is exposed in a thin, moist wrapping.

It is like seeing the Holy Grail.
Without a word, Bill turns away from the class, digs back down into the streambed, tucks the shell back in place, and covers its sides. The moonsnail oozes down into the mud and out of sight. cc Melody Hessing

p.s. I saw an egg casing as I was walking back to shore, perhaps this guy had chosen my site as a good spot for disposal of its progeny.

Siuslaw Transplant

En route back down to Coos Bay, I stopped off for a morning to help the South Slough gang on an eelgrass transplant on the North Fork of the Siuslaw River. Oregon Department of Transportation will be replacing the existing bridge structure over this river as it joins the main fork of the Siuslaw. In so doing, they will also quash a portion of a healthy and expanding eelgrass bed. Steve, being the local eelgrass expert is in charge of a mitigation effort to see if they can save some of the bed by transplanting it. It was fun to help out (and not worry about logistics) and to see another approach to eelgrass transplanting - different from the single plant method that I'm familiar with. The crew had already been at it all week, so they had their protocol down pat by the time I arrived...... This consisted of digging up large plugs of eelgrass + rhizome + sediment (with a handheld snow shovel!), dumping it into a brightly coloured buckets in a canoe along with a chunk of rebar to hold it in place. These mounds were transported just downstream to the transplant site, which adjoined another, intact bed of eelgrass. At this site we dug holes in the sediment and then plopped the plug into place, using bamboo "chopsticks" to try and hold things in place against the river current. Some of the donor site shoots were also washed of sediment, then attached to small pieces of rebar with twist ties. We planted these in between the larger eelgrass mounds to fill in the gaps. The transplanted eelgrass was arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The plan is that overtime, they will expand and fill in the gaps. Steve will be monitoring and tending to this bed for the next 9 years (that's quite a commitment!). I've posted an underwater video of the transplant site taken by Ben in full wetsuit attire (plus samurai ponytail):http://picasaweb.google.com/margothl/07_06_15_SiuslawTransplant
It was great to work with this crew as they are really gung-ho - wetsuits, canoes and all! This morning I went out to two of my sites to collect eelgrass and algae biomass samples. The tide was incredibly low (-0.6m), which is always cool as all these new features of your site are revealed. The low tide was actually at a reasonable time this morning (a gentleman's tide said someone yesterday), so there were a ton ofclamdiggers out on the flats. I listened as one guy working close by tried to coak out a clam he was hunting, "come on honey, squirt for me!". Gentlemen's lingo indeed. On my way out to my first site a guy passed me and asked if I had caught my limit yet, I responded, "yes, in eelgrass". He didn't get it, and followed my tracks to my transect line, where I assume he thought I was filling up on clams. Then he proceeded to dig a huge hole right in the middle of the eelgrass bed. Arghhh!!!!! I went back and explained to him that it would be nice if he could avoid this section, and that the clamming was much better up higher anyways. He said, as expected, that he had never been out here before but thought he'd try this spot as he saw others out here - I think I need better camo for the next tide series! It doesn't matter though, you can't keep people away I guess, at my next site, there were also some huge pits near the monitoring site. Some guys asked me to come over - they were curious about the i.d. of a huge moonsnail (Euspira lewisii) they had found and I asked them about the pits. They said, yeah, people out for the first time and they have no idea where the best clams are. I met one more notable character on the mudflat today. He was a heavyset man scuffing along on two pontoon shoes. I asked him about them, and he said, "first time I came out I almost had a cardiac arrest, these things are the only way my big belly doesn't sink into the mud". His friend had custom-made these mud walkers for him: inflatable wheelbarrow tires, a wood plank and bindings - I might have to try this one day!

I''m glad that the past couple of days have been the lowest tides of the year, and that mostly my sites are protected by super early mornings and quick exposure. However, the super low lows are great for fieldwork. It seems like you have the whole day to work, an endless time as the tide recedes. Then the water hovers for awhile at the channel edge before the flood, rushing back in much faster to send you scurrying quickly back to shore.

Duck Tape

This is the amount of duck tape and athletic tape needed to keep my socks upright beneath waders. Slouching socks and skin exposed skin to chaffing are to the detriment of every intrepid mud explorer.

Roger's Zoo

John and I are finishing up with data entry at Roger's Zooemporium (or something Zoo ish) and are patiently waiting for an incredible pizza - out first meal since breakfast! John just devoured the best tortilla chips ever, and we are soaking in the live Townes Van Zandt and Lightfoot cover artist amist smalltown drunken bar chattter. John is leaving me 3 chips to be polite, but I'm giving him the a ok to go ahead with the chips before he passes out. We entered the data, and I might be a little light-headed from my pint of beer, but we're relishing in the glow of a great inaugural kayak day. For some reason, this local bar hang-out has wireless - weird since the atmosphere is dark - no light - and we are definitely outcasts with the laptop running. There is also a baby shower going on behind us, and a group of lesbians showing off their tatoos, as well as the usual men at the bar shooting the shit.

Apparently yesterday's hike was the second longest slog in white man's history of slogging in the Slough. Only to be outdone by the master, Steve, who one day walked almost the entire slough - all the way back to Charleston - he claims this was on purpose, to get acquainted with the estuary, but we've heard he was on a vision quest!

Pizza is here!!!!! Yeah!!!!!! This pizza looks rediculously good - its overflowing and the crust is rippled and infused with the toppings itself - but this ain't no commercial stuff crust!!!!!

Bears and Wolves; Destination Danger!

I'm back in Coos Bay, this time with John Schaefers, our lab tech, handyman, truck mechanic, cameraman, storyteller, and accomplished mud walker. We went out on the South Slough NERR (National Estuarine Research Reserve) boat to do some recon for an eelgrass monitoring site up-estuary. Steve Rumrill, the science director for the reserve showed us where we could find a potential site where they've worked before bearing the name of Danger Point. He assured me that it wasn't really dangerous, just that some field work mishaps had previously occured at the site, but I still can't help but wonder just how cursed this spot will be.... I already have one marine site, and one site halfway down the estuary, but need another site with more riverine influence to compare with the others. If you zoom into this map, maybe you can get a sense of where I was headed:

We couldn't make it to the desination in boat becuase the tide was still too low, so John and I decided to hop ship and head to Danger Point by foot. Unfortunately, the going was rough... I mean soft... super soft mud that was impossible to get through. John, having just gotten off a mudshrimp experiment with Sally was well accustomed, but this was my first real slog of the summer, and the stuff was deep - I kept sinking up to the top of my hip waders (mistake - chest waders for tomorrow!). I eventually had to give up and crawl.... We eventually made it out of the mud and into the fringe marsh, where the going was much easier. En route we found some bear tracks, which John swears are huge, but being only the size of my hand, I think are quite small or average for a black bear. We mentioned this to Steve who said, oh yeah, that must have been a Black Bear Crossing - their favorite spot for getting across the slough.

Checking out Danger Pt.
(looks like working here is going to be fun!)


Eelgrass Boa
(already so dirty I couldnt' resist)

We made it to the site, and it looks like it has potential, so we marked it out and will return tomorrow to set things up. Then we phoned for a rescue from the other side - it had taken us almost 2 hours to walk from the boat, so its a good thing reception held and we could coordinate a pick-up from the other side - a quick 30 minute walk through as amazing marsh that they've been restoring for almost 20 years now.

While we were waiting for our ride, we made friends with an Arctic Wolf! Yes, that's right, this lady was hanging out with her "dog", and although it first growled as John approached it slowly befriended us. It was huge - 175 pds, with the most gorgeous fur. Beautiful, just like its name Beau (although I think to be fair to the dog it should be spelt Bo), but also pretty scarry, especially as its owner, this petite older lady kept telling us about how crazy it has been of late at home - that's why she was hanging out at the slough!. She adopted the wolf after a shifty up-bringing and it still has some eccentricities, but seems ok for an animal that never needed to be domesticated. She said that there's a wolf rescue group that have made shawls out its fur - we were left with our own personal fur (and smell) covering after our visit.

Action Shot; Thumbs Up!

Back to the lab we made a stop to pick up some kayaks at the reserve. I was pretty excited to find out about the boats..... much easier that walking in the muck, and a good excuse to go for a paddle. So a great day, with plenty of adventures and exotic animal sightings amidst the rural clearcut lands of Oregon.

"Ciao", from Margot, seen here posing with a native rhodo.
All headshots coutesy of John and his pursuit of a good field pic of me. This one ain't bad.

Willapa Bay; A Retrospective

Two weeks ago I went to Willapa Bay on a recon mission. Katie Naphtali came along as my companion and field assistant. We walked out to two oyster aquaculture areas that we will be sampling later on in June. I was checking to see how these sites were faring since last year, getting spatially oriented with respect to the different oyster bed types and grabbing the sensors that have been logging temperature and light intensity since last summer. Some of these sensors were fouled – covered in barnacles and algae – but surprisingly, many of them looked fine and were still blinking away, thus indicating that they were still logging.
Quintessential KT pose above.

Pendant Loggers (the sensors)

KT did an admirable job slogging it out in the mud with a nasty cold, but I think I might have given her a false impression of fieldwork – we didn’t have to get down on our knees once and there was no grit to be had under the fingernails. And that was just fine, as we were en route home to Vancouver for a friend’s wedding. Despite some major Burden problems (that’s my vehicle as usual!) we made it back to BC for Genny and Chris’ fabulous wedding. Unfortunately, worked called me back to the States, and I headed back early the next week – the first of many summer road trips to come.

OIMB

Wow, that was fast…. Not sure if I can keep up this rate of postings! OIMB stands for Oregon Institute of Marine Biology. It’s located in Charleston, which is near the mouth of Coos Bay. I’ve been here doing some eelgrass monitoring for the past 3 days. I’m here by myself to get things organized for the rest of the summer. It’s a little hard to motivate yourself to get up at 4:30 and hit the foggy mud flats solo, and so I’m looking forward to a field assistant next week, as I don’t think its healthy when you genuinely think the seagulls are talking to you.

Its been foggy and a bit blustery for the past two days. My first day out was much more pleasant, one of those days when you feel ridiculously spoiled to be at this type of work. This was probably related to the lifting of the fog and my various visits from passing critters. The osprey didn’t seem to mind that I was standing right next to his prey. I only heard the splash as it bombed into the Bay, flying away quickly with a little fish in its talons. The seal and otter passed consecutively, checking me out as I counted swirling blades in standing water.

The tide wasn’t that low so unfortunately I had to make do with touch as opposed to sight as I quantified the percent cover of eelgrass and macroalgae in my quadrats. I’m trying to get a handle on the amount of macroalgae associated with eelgrass in these habitats – and this site has a ridiculous amount: thin sheets of ulvoids and many open-coast species that drift into the estuaries. I also count the density of eelgrass shoots in the quadrats – I’ll do this monthly this year to determine seasonal cycles of eelgrass in the Bay.

As the tide began to rise, and passing boats and animals left their wake I started to feel seasick with the rippling incoming wavelets – a perfect curl for fairy surfers! Luckily I finished my measurements along the transect line just in time for the flooding tide to hide the bottom from my view.

I’m tired (most likely attributed to a splendid day of climbing at Smith Rock prior to this trip) and am heading home for the weekend tomorrow morning to recuperate for next week and fetch my field help.