Wonderful Witty’s

Last week as their penultimate field trip, second year Marine Science students explored Witty’s Lagoon as an example of an estuary. We measured water temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen at six locations along the estuary. The photo above shows Michael reading out the data that he and Michał collected (seen in the photo below) on Wednesday 13 April.

Noëmi and Kevin collected similar data from the same location (‘Log lake’) on the previous day (Tuesday 12 April 2016).

In the photo below, Tamara & Laura collect data from the ‘ocean’ site.

Data for all three days shown below:

The site that we named ‘Skunk cabbage creek’ was very near this beautiful plant.

We also explored the salt marsh and some of its inhabitants – for several students the plants were cool the spiders were not!

We also found some wonderful invertebrates, both in the estuary and on the sandy beach.

Molting green shore crab

Connor and an asian mudflat snail

Purple ribbon worm

Lugworm poop

Lugworm proper

Tidepool studies

First year marine scientists have been investigating tidepools at Weir’s Beach today and at Witty’s Lagoon, Tower Point over the past few days. Above Jacqueline and Ochuko are making observations about a high tidepool.

A low tidepool at Weir’s Beach

A high tidepool at Witty’s

Ilana and Jaime

Abbie observing a feather duster worm

We also observed some interesting organisms and events:

A shaggy mouse nudibranch (Aeolidia papillosa) at Weir’s Beach (perhaps the same individual that Roxi spotted last year). These slugs eat anemones! And speaking of anemones…

A dividing aggregating anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima).

A spawning aggregation of whelks (Nucella lamellosa) and an abundance of egg capsules.

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:

Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup 2013

Nine hearty Pearson College students joined Andy Mackinnon (site coordinator in centre of photo above with olive rain jacket & hat) and several local Metchosinites at Witty’s Lagoon Regional Park Beach to participate in the 20th annual Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup.

Andy and Colleen Long (CRD) gave us instructions…

Then we all braved the rain to collect several buckets of garbage…

All in all a great success, despite the rain!  Thanks to the stalwart students: Alice, Chloe, Hanne, Julia, Killaq, Rebecca, Riikka, Sophia and especially to Dakota for organizing the Pearson College group.

 Sophia proudly displays the best garbage item she found.

Dead harbour seal at Witty’s Beach

Simon and I went to check out a dead harbour seal at Witty’s Beach this afternoon after Julie Bowser told us about it.

The large body was relatively intact – apart from the blood gurgling out of the eye socket while we were there and a small lesion in the skin of the left front flipper, I could see no external damage.

Of course, Simon was more interested in digging in the sand!

Witty’s Beach with A block

On Tuesday 9 April, second year Marine Science students travelled to Witty’s Beach as an example of a sandy beach ecosystem. We did a beach seine in which we found young flatfish (still mostly transparent), staghorn sculpins and crangonid shrimp.