Nature Noticings

Last week we spent a wonderful part of a day at Griffiths-Priday State Park near Copalis, WA. When we arrived at the parking lot, we were stymied - a wide, deep creek separated us from the beach. Luckily, a kind local with a sweet dog directed us to the trail heading north and around the mouth of the creek - about a 3/4 mile walk. He told us that the creek's mouth has been migrating north over the years. At one point, it was south of the parking area. Someday it might connect to the Copalis River and cut off the beach access altogether. For now, though, you can walk along the edge of the dunes and down on to the beach. It was almost deserted, and there were no cars at all. There were shells and sand dollars on the beach - including the first scallop shells I've ever found. And then I found this: One side of it Flipped over the other way It was about 9 inches long, and rubbery, but sturdy enough that I could scoop it up with a stick and carry it. It was partly transparent. One s...

We took a flying trip this weekend to Ocean Shores, WA to take advantage of a school break and some welcome winter sunshine. I found wonderful things on the beach - I hope to write several posts about them!  Let's start with bryozoans, though, which are one of my tiny passions. I found my first bryozoans on the inside of a vacant moon snail shell near Dungeness, WA. I was examining the shell closely and noticed a regular pattern in patches on the inside of it. The bryozoans were intricate and beautiful and I was hooked! Bryozoans are tiny colonial animals that can superficially resemble coral, but are in their own phylum. They are sometimes called moss animals. Living bryozoans can be very colorful, but what I usually find are the shells (or tests - not sure about the proper term) left behind, which are white. This time, I found colonies on washed up seaweed (or maybe surf grass?) at Ocean City State Park near Ocean Shores. These animals are TINY (though it feels wrong to write tin...

We've had a few warm days and much to my delight the liverworts are starting to "bloom." To find them, be sure to look closely at fallen logs and mossy branches in the woods in the late winter and early spring (at least in the Puget Sound area). Liverworts are not flowering plants, so they don't bloom in a literal sense. To reproduce they send up a structure called a sporophyte. Liverwort sporophytes can have many different shapes, but the ones that I've encountered are composed of a translucent, glassy stem (or seta) with a shiny black sporangium on top. The sporangium looks like an oval-shaped black pearl. The sporophytes look fungal; the colors seem so unlikely for plant structures. Some liverwort sporophytes look even more bizarre - like tiny lotus pods or alien parasols. I haven't found any of those species - yet! I found this liverwort on Tiger Mountain (where the Nook Trail comes down onto the Tradition Plateau) last weekend, tangled among moss. The lea...