What a day at Coal Oil Point! Whales and octopus and plovers, oh my!

from marinebio.net by Genny Anderson

Sparklin' day at Coal Oil Point last Thursday - starting with the two gray whales breaching just beyond the kelp forests off the point!   At this point the gray whales are migrating north, back to the Bering Sea where they spend the summer.  Check out SBCC prof Genny Anderson's site for information about the gray whales and their journey past our coast.






Thanks to Zeke for finding our first octopus!  Again, some great info about this and other "treasures" we spotted, like the sea hare, I recommend Genny's site.  This is the page to read about low intertidal organisms.

We saw some of the sandy beach denizens.... those beach hoppers under the drying kelp wrack are so crucial to maintaining the bird diversity we saw.  Here is a nice page by UCSB researcher, Jenny Dugan, about the role of beach wrack and comparisons of "groomed" vs ungroomed beaches.

And finally, if you'd like to read about the snowy plover program (and perhaps even volunteer to be a docent)  click here!

from http://coaloilpoint.ucnrs.org/SnowyPloverProgram.html