Looking through my catalog of #seaanemone photos for something to use in an intro slide for one of my #marinebiology lectures and ran across this, one of my all-time favorite shots. The creature is Anthopleura xanthogrammica, the giant green anemone, photographed in #California on 2018-07-17.

Marbled godwits in silhouette, at Moss Landing State Beach. 2026-01-04 #birds #birdphotography #wildbird #naturephotography #nikon #nikonphotography #marbledgodwit

Looking back at some old photos, and this is one of my all-time best. It's a 44-day-old larva of the bat star Patiria miniata. From top to bottom it is ~1mm long. How I did it: canaturalist.com/another-1000... #throughthemicroscope #larvae #marineinvertebrate #seastar #focusmerge

Seen at work, or a scene at work.

Reminder: Election closing times. Please make sure to vote and remember, if you’re in line when the polls close, you still have the right to vote. Don’t get out of line! - 7 p.m. ET - Virginia - 8 p.m. ET - New Jersey - 8 p.m. ET - Pennsylvania - 9 p.m. ET - New York City - 8 p.m. PT - California

The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors declared a local emergency over food insecurity Tuesday and approved a $500,000 donation to Second Harvest Food Bank, as federal food aid delays from the ongoing government shutdown leave thousands without assistance.

Serendipity = lecturing on kelps and noting the morphology of bull kelp, then finding an intact one on the beach during the field trip! #fieldtrip #marinebiology

Some Halloween true-life horror, beekeeper-style! canaturalist.com/zombeeees/ #beekeeping #parasites #zombies

New month, new page in my calendar of #intertidal photos! July gets to show off Plocamium pacificum, one of the gorgeous red #algae we have in Northern California. It lives in the low intertidal in exposed rocky areas, and is one of my favorites. #rhodophyta #redalgae #sanmateocounty

Wow, Iceland is an amazing place to visit! Not only can you see the ocean ridge there, but they have puffins! These are Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) that breed on cliffs, especially along the south and west coasts. I also saw them in Scotland but from farther away. #iceland #puffin #bird

Three years ago today, on 6 Mar 2022, I caught indisputable evidence that birds are dinosaurs. Shadows don't lie! Western gull (Larus occidentalis) Santa Cruz, CA #birds

#MalabrigoMarch2025 means it's time to knit with some of my favorite yarns! These balls of #MalabrigoRios in the colorway Apple Green are going to be a cardigan for little old me. I salvaged them from some other project I don't even remember starting, and so far the yarn and I are both happy now.

Goodness knows I’ve needed a respite in the tidepools lately! Afternoon low tides aren’t my favorite, but there’s no denying the gorgeous light of the late afternoon. Really makes this moon flow anemone (Anthopleura artemisia) glow! #tidepools #seaanemone

On this day when so many celebrate romantic/sexual love, it's good to remember that the animal kingdom features many ways of having sex. Banana slugs, like all terrestrial mollusks, are simultaneous hermaphrodites. I caught this pair copulating in 2019. Can't tell which is acting as male this time!

Happy SuperbOwl Sunday! This is a great horned owl I photographed at the San Luis Nat'l Wildlife Refuge in Central California on 2025-01-12. #SuperbOwlSunday #bird #owl

I'm lucky to be owned by a gang of 5 chickadees! They are year-round residents and are used to us, completely unfazed when I whip out the big lens and point it at them. Chestnut-backed chickadee (Poecile rufescens) in California #bird #songbird #backyardbirds

Achievement unlocked: Perfect symmetry! Well played, girls, well played indeed! That's Lucie on the left and Maggie on the right. #caturday #cats #calicocat #tortiecat

Yes! I can’t believe we have to spell it out like this.

There were so many geese at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in Central California last weekend! These are snow geese (Anser caerulescens), but there were also many greater white-fronted geese, as well as tundra swans. #birds #birdwatching #birdphotography

Got to watch this beautiful predator in action this afternoon! #wildlife #california #wildlifephotography #nikon www.canaturalist.com/spying-on-th...

I love how the black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus) flies with its super long legs straight out back! #birdphotography #addBirder

I've visited this place several times but have never been able to photograph the owls that roost there. But yesterday I was lucky! These are great horned owls (Bubo virginianus) roosting in denuded trees at the San Luis National Wildlife Refuge in Central California. #wildlife #birdphotography #owls

The connection between the fires in #SoCal and #climatechange, according to the people who really understand this stuff: www.noaa.gov/noaa-wildfir...

@meeracollier.bsky.social Hi, Meera!

Everybody has heard about how the Santa Cruz wharf and harbor were hit hard by big swell a few days ago. But there was also damage that most people will not be aware of. www.canaturalist.com/collateral-d...

When I had a desk in a zooplankton ecology lab the folks who went out on the trawls used to do that with those styrofoam heads for wigs. Draw a face on it with Sharpie, send that sucker down with the bongo net, and you got yourself a shrunken head! Ahh, fun times!

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #Books #BookSky 💙📚 #BookChallenge Day 8

Every year I make a wall calendar from photos I've taken in the intertidal. It occurred that I'd better get started on the 2025 version! This is the photo I used for November 2024. Pisaster ochraceus, the ochre star. #marineinvertebrate #tidepools

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #Books #BookSky 💙📚 #BookChallenge Day 6

A student club for which I am a faculty sponsor decided that they wanted to make a brochure of the 10 most common iNaturalist observations of native flora and fauna on campus. I was lucky and got to draw the California poppy, Eschscholzia californica!

Don't you sometimes wish you could just crawl back into that sea cucumber's butt and hide from the world? No? Is it just me, then? #marineinvertebrates #oddhidingplaces

Whoa.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Day 6 💙📚 #Books #BookSky #BookChallenge

One of my favorite animals is the staurozoan, Haliclystus. It looks sort of like a sea anemone polyp but is instead a stalked medusa! Strange beast. They are patchy in both space in time, at least where I see them in #NorCal. Always makes me happy to find them! #staurozoa #cnidaria #addOcean

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers! #BookSky 💙📚 #Books #BookChallenge Day 5

Awww, look at her ploofy paws! 🐾 🐱 #Maggie #cats #felineoverlord

Good morning! I was greeted by a lovely #sunrise this morning, before the first #atmosphericriver of the rain season is supposed to blow in. We need the rain, but 🤞🤞🤞 that it doesn’t cause catastrophic flooding.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers! #BookSky 💙📚 #Books #BookChallenge Day 4

Lucky hermit crab to have found such a nice shell! Pagurus sp. in the shell of Calliostoma annulatum.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #BookSky #Books #BookChallenge Day 3

The kitty on the left (Maggie) cost me a lot of $$$ yesterday but she's sweet and I love her to pieces. Her sister (Lucie) still isn't happy that Maggie came home smelling like the vet. But she'll get over it. #cats #tortie #calico #caturday

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #BookSky #Books #BookChallenge Day 2

Hell yeah, I'll play this game! Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #BookSky #Books #BookChallenge Day 1

Pillars of Creation through MIRI | JWST

So, there's this new thing called Bluesky, eh? Well, let's give this a shot and see if I can figure out how to make it work. To get started, here I am collecting algae in the intertidal. Taken by my friend @brandygale.bsky.social