Kelp forest trips 2013

On Tuesday 8 October and Thursday 10 October, second year marine scientists journeyed to a small kelp forest near Fossil Point.

Griffin & Ivan did a dive in the kelp on Tuesday, while Lily & Lucas (pictured below) went on Thursday.

Divers took a video camera with them that is connected via a cable to a monitor in the cabin of the boat so that students not in the water could see what the divers see, in real time.

We even saw a diver underwater: Lily in the photo below!

Several students also snorkelled to experience the kelp forest.

Some of the species observed include: bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) of course!, cross jellyfish (Mitrocoma cellularia), blood star (Henricia sp.):

Sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides):

Hooded nudibranch (Melibe leonina):

A brittle star in a kelp holdfast:

And ochre stars (Pisaster ochraceus):

Two wonderful trips!

Lucas getting ready to dive in the kelp forest

Suited up:

Getting the briefing from Erik:

 

Ready to roll:

 

In the water:

 

Thanks for this series of photos, Taylor!

Another Foggy Friday

Friday 18 October 2013 7:45 am, Pearson College dock, Pedder Bay

Pedder Bay Marina

The double-crested cormorants seemed to be very agitated this morning.  Many of the birds were flying around in Pedder Bay.

Esquimalt Lagoon – 3 October 2013

It was a sunny Thursday morning at Esquimalt Lagoon for the other class of second year marine scientists.

Again, we did two beach seines but at this location there was much less seaweed.

We found crangonid shrimp in the seine:

We then moved to the cobbles and found a diverse collection of organisms under the rocks.

Lots of crabs including: green shore crabs (Hemigrapsus oregonensis), decorator crabs and hermit crabs.

We also found amphipods, isopods, barnacles, periwinkles, mussels, fish eggs and flatworms (and those were all under a single rock!).

Witty’s Beach – 30 September 2013

It was a rainy Monday morning (30 September) but second year marine scientists persevered…

We did two beach seines:

which both resulted in copious amounts of seaweed.

We searched through the seaweed and found some interesting organisms that we looked at back at the lab using dissecting microscopes (photos from Taylor’s iPhone).

A decorator crab.

A flat-top sea squirt (Chelysoma sp.)

A cancrid crab.

We also examined the sand grains under the microscope:

 

We did a little digging at Witty’s Beach…

 

and found a beautiful red polychaete worm:

 

And finally a photo of the Haystack Islets:

What a day in Pedder Bay!

Yesterday was the first day of October and there was an incredible amount of animal activity around Pedder Bay.

The first animal of note was a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) on the ramp down to the Pearson College dock.  It was very distracting to Marine Science students…

At the same time the heron was making its way down to the dock, three mink also scrambled down towards the water. Since it was difficult to keep the class focused, we went down to the dock and checked the succession substrates that were suspended over one year ago.

Lots of bryozoans, hydrozoans and several crescent gunnels (Pholis laeta).

While down at the dock, second year marine scientists noticed a hooded nudibranch (Melibe leonina) drifting around at the surface.

Not a great photo or video footage but a very cool little watermelon-smelling organism!  Cool enough to have a song written about it by Hanne and Killaq.

First year marine scientists measured the variation in temperature and salinity off the Pearson College dock after big rainfall during the weekend.

Depth (m)	Temperature (oC)	Salinity (ppt)
0	11.3	11.9
0.5	10.7	30.6
1	10.5	30.8
2	10.5	30.9
3	10.4	30.9
4	10.5	31.0
5	10.5	29.7
6	10.5	29.0

While collecting these data we spotted some further animal activity at the mouth of Pedder Bay:

A submarine being escorted to the Navy dock.  What a day!