Emergence, transformation, change. It's Spring and change is coming so let's direct the movement and seize the day! A Dragonfly emerges from the larval stage/nymph stage before the wings are ready to fly. The Dragon flies emerged in the hundreds onto iris blades at Grandy Lake WA.

There's one Kelp Bass & half a dozen Blacksmith in this photo. Blacksmith are small territorial rockfish, Chromis punctipinnis, which are found in kelp beds. "Males clean a nesting site and attract females to it, guarding the eggs until they hatch while juveniles form schools and are pelagic".

A mountain stream near Mt Baker WA. The forest is strangely dry this Spring. I had planned on staying near here in a recently closed sno park but the parks were covered in broken glass, trash, spent shells, & big screen TVs. Turns out people go out to the woods to shoot big screen TVs, what hunters!

2000 METERS? 😱

I love a good tellima.

That's a Grape Plume Moth resting on Fringe Cups. I've toyed with hand held shots using a macro lens but I think I'll go back to the tripod method instead.

Another photo of the Jack By The Wind Sailor, Velella velella. This Hydrozoan reproduces via medusae which contain symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae. The medusae can "sink as far as 2000M" then "The developing embryos develop floats and rise back to the surface".

A sterling silver casting of a trillium I did some years back, it has a Lake Superior agate and is about 2.25 inches across

A young California Sea Hare on a rocky reef. The literature says they're herbivores but I've seen them eating small dead sharks when they can get it. They reach adult stage about 85 days after hatching, settling, and metamorphosing from a swimming larva to to the sea slug pictured below.

I posted another Trillium blossom this morning and this one isn't as sharp as I'd like but the color is exceptional. The flowers are usually white and pink.

A Trillium, Rasar State Park WA taken last week. This is a smaller file than the original, but they have a variety of colors depending upon exposure to sunlight. I think a copper/silver pendant with enameled petals is a perfect way to honor these magnificent flowers. I'll leave most of the bugs out

A Sea Pen, Stylatula elongata. A relative of Octocorals, this one lives in shallow water, Zuma Beach was where they were common outside the sand dollar beds. They can live to be 100 yrs old. They're bioluminescent and they're preyed upon by sea slugs and sea stars. Fossils date from >508 m yrs ago.

In a few decades all filter feeding shellfish will be threatened by Climate Change. They are either going to die from outbreaks like this or they're going to be inedible because of red tides, toxic phytoplankton. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

A Chestnut-Backed Chickadee pauses on a mossy branch while defending his territory in Spring. #birds

Feather Duster Worms are featured in this photo. The feathery appendages are for filter feeding. These worms are in the Family of Annelids, the Sabellidae. There are 2 sexes in Sabellidae & the worms feed on phytoplankton, zooplankton, & bacteria, particles down to a few microns in size.

Frontiers | Evaluating the role of seaweed farming in ocean acidification mitigation: insights from high-frequency observations www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.... 🦑🌎🧪

Anthopleura sola, the Sunburst Anemone. It's a solitary polyp with symbiotic algae & that gives them their colors. Normally they would be pale white but the algae gives them colors like pink, blue, and lavender on the tentacles.

Always a bright spot in any woodland, the chickadee has always been an effervescent presence in my life... #Paridae #BirdoftheDay #Chickadees #Birds

I watched some episodes of Planet Earth today. On one of them they were showing some creatures from deep in the ocean. They were so colorful and cool looking. I love those shows and The Blue Planet series. I wish we were kinder to our planet and the creatures we share it with.

A Bald Eagle roosts on a branch near the Pacific Ocean on the Olympic Peninsula, WA. I took a few pictures, me and my dog looking up at him, and he looked distinctly annoyed. #birds

The California Two-spot Octopus attempting to hide thru cryptic coloration. "O. bimaculoides became the first octopus to have a fully sequenced genome" in 2015.

Can confirm. Children running=impending ISIS attack.

This nudibranch is called a "Spanish Shawl" for the coloration of the sea slug. "When threatened, Flabellina iodinea can escape by flexing its body and swimming away from potential predators."

Western Bleeding Hearts

A chickadee cleaning out a nest-cavity in preparation for Spring. #birds

My dog spotted a bug walking quickly thru the grass. She's a cattledog and one thing cattledogs dislike is running. No running around cattledogs is allowed! Ask their permission & they'll agree to anything until the petting stops or the treats are gone, No Running! The bug was OK.

A Bumblebee lands on a Thimbleberry Flower. It's carrying a large mass of pollen and the bunches of pollen are called "corbiculae".

A Waxwing alert on a branch over Baker Lake WA. Probably wonders what the other Waxwings are doing and what are they eating. #birds

A small school of juvenile rockfish swim away over a rocky reef at Coal Oil Point. A pair of kelp stands silhouetted in the background. This was shot at about 10M depth.

I suppose mothers and kids who survive to maturity move on up the coast. Sorry, I couldn't resist...

It's beak neat and clean, a drowsy barred owl hangs out after a rainy night on the town. #RestingBeakFace #BirdoftheDay #Birds

A flock of Canada Geese takes off in Marymoor Park, Redmond, WA. The geese overwinter here, walking across the grass with rubber boots on is required or your feet will get caked in poop. #birds

There's a second crab in this photo. It's a little difficult to see but these are mating rock crabs. This was taken near Arroyo Burro Beach in Santa Barbara. Arroyo Burro is usually calm & popular with young mothers and kids. It gets a lot of bacteria from a waste water treatment plant up the beach.

Earth Day reminder that Trump’s EPA rolled back regulations governing clean air, water, wildlife, and toxic chemicals. He’s pushed to open public lands to drilling and mining. And he’s gutted clean energy programs while promoting dirty fossil fuels. He’s a danger to our planet and our health.

Two adult Double-crested Cormorants show off their crests to a pair of females. A sea gull is just looking for something to eat and is unimpressed. Taken at the Santa Barbara Harbor. #birds Happy Earth Day!

Three Navanax inermis preparing to mate. This predatory sea slug doesn't have visual perception but uses chemoreceptors to find food and mates. I kinda like their pinstripe suits.

Western Bleeding Hearts

It took several weeks to capture a good photo of the resident Anna's hummingbird at a rose in the front yard... #BirdoftheDay #PetalsandPerches #Birds #ECK

Some of the best times diving off of S. California was during the winter months when the water was so cold the plankton wasn't growing and visibility was in the hundreds of feet. Gliding thru a kelp forests is akin to walking thru a forest of sequoia trees or the light in a cathedral.

Mount Roraima and the other tabletop mountains in Canaima National Park are considered to be the oldest geological formations on Earth, dating back around two billion years to the Precambrian Era. Original post

A Spotted Sandpiper calling on the Cispus River. It's "known for a bobbing motion while walking along shorelines. It breeds near freshwater across North America and has a unique mating system where females may mate with multiple males, leaving them to incubate the eggs." #birds

A Young Sea Lion rests on the surface near a kelp bed. The fin is raised to absorb warmth from the sun, thermoregulation. This young sea lion was so worn out from hunting it didn't even notice as I motored by only a few feet away.

These are Jack-by-the-wind sailors, they're related to the Portuguese Man O'War, and they feed on plankton. Nekton fliers at the boundary where most of life is found in the seas. One of those days when the wind wasn't blowing.

I don't think I'll ever get over Clarence Thomas ruling on cases related to Jan 6 knowing that his wife was an active participant in the attempted coup. Or ruling on cases related to government regulations and a wealth tax knowing he took gifts from billionaires. It's a disgrace.

A Bat Star peeks out from under some seaweed and tests the current for food with the tiny suckers extended on the ends of the arms. The sucker feet have taste buds or the equivalent and see stars use that to find food.

I took some pic of this Anna's Hummingbird around April 11 a few years back when it was still cold and the cherry blossoms hadn't yet opened but this hummingbird was determined to stay on the site & claim it for himself. He's puffed up his feather for warmth. #birds

A microscopic tardigrade, also known as a water bear, walking across a glass slide. Extremely resilient, it can survive decades without food or water and are the only known animal that can survive in direct exposure in space. [🔬 Tobin Sparling] Original post

Breaking News! Code: Preliminary Mega-Yikes!!! Preliminary SSTs are spiking near a new record all-time high. The final data will take about 2 weeks to be posted. With the record ocean heatwave in the Eastern pacific and a rapidly developing El Nino, hang on to your tenterhooks!

100% of copper mines have polluted water downstream. This mine will be no different. And why? So Twin Metals' Chilean parent company can profit by shipping our copper ore to China to be smelted and sold on the global market. It’s up to Congress to permanently protect the Boundary Waters.