west coast lady ~ 06/27/10 ~ Rec Trail

west coast lady
Vanessa annabella

This "lady" was defending its territory (or was it flirting?) with the red admiral shown below in a frenetic butterfly swirl and chase. The red admiral was definitely the aggressor in this encounter. Shapiro states the two species can hybridize. To see what this hybrid V. atlanta var. edwardsi looks like check out BugGuide.net.

red admiral ~ 06/27/10 ~ Rec Trail

red admiral
Vanessa atalanta

The flash went off for the first photograph and I kinda like the result. If all I had was that pic, I'd have a hard time identifying this butterfly. Usually at rest, red admirals show much more of the underside of their forewing with distinctive red, blue, and white stripes (a little early for the 4th of July). Click on the common name above to see what I mean. From the topside, the red stripes makes it obvious which butterfly this is. Red admirals are quite common around here and are indeed common around the world. Like buckeyes, they like to sun themselves in the afternoon on dirty paths, which doesn't make for a pretty backdrop.

grunion greeting, 2010 #5

grunion greeting
full moon cycle, 10:45-12:00am, overcast skies

Sorry to say, this may have been our last hurrah to look for the locally elusive Leuresthes tenuis. We haven't seen any this year at all and it's beyond discouraging. To be fair, unlike last year, we're not going out 1/2 hour before high tide for 2-3 nights in a row. I was counting on the June full moon to deliver a grunion run, but no such luck.

Since we were asked to stay out to 1:00am, we took a nap. When my alarm went off, I woke up confused wondering who'd be calling us so late. Then I heard a mumble from the other side of the pillows, "I don't want to go... but if you insist, I can be convinced." Gotta love the man!

When we arrived there were a couple bonfires and 16-25 people all along the beach, many in the water with flashlights. We assumed it was Dr. G's entourage, but instead the group turned out to be a couple families of local fishermen. I talked with some of them and they were very friendly. Some of the wives were hula dancers for a beach party at Adventures by the Sea back in 2007 when they saw a big grunion run (it amazes me how all these local stories refer to that particular summer). This is the first year they decided to try collecting grunion. Usually, they're on the pier at night using lines for smelt and mackerel. Apparently, they came out the 2 nights after the last new moon (6/13 & 6/14). They claim they saw a ton of grunion by flashlight in the shallow waters that Sunday night and nothing on Monday night. When I asked if they noticed any laying eggs in the sand, they said no. Andy pointed out that he wasn't sure if what they saw were really grunion since there are several kinds of small silvery fish.

We walked down to the cement structure and by the time we got back to the pier most of the group had left. There were 2 young sea lions near the pier and 3 seagulls in the usual spot 100 yards out on the berm. By 11:30 the MBARI fellow and a couple interns from St. Louis arrived. They, too, walked down the beach. I wasn't feeling all that well, so we left early figuring if any grunion showed up George would report it.

We may not continue with this program given the extra effort it takes to drag ourselves out of bed to get to the beach... or to make it through the next day. I may never get a chance to report a W-3 and I even had the 1-800 number hotline programmed on my cell. Phooey!

the ugly duckling

mute swan
Cygnus olor
Windsor, England
November 5, 2006

I had never seen swans before this trip and was amazed by how big they were. Can they really fly? Those old-fashioned nursery rhyme illustrations of small children riding swans are not much of an exaggeration. Or maybe that was Mother Goose?

Thanks to Janet's comment below, I got a lead for the pic above in my original "can you ID ?" post and, naturally, I looked into it. Apparently, the Duckling hero in this famous Hans Christian Andersen tale is a Cygnus. There seems to be some consensus that Anderson was writing about himself in this story. The best English online translation of Den grimme ælling that I could find is an old public domain version from The Harvard Classics. It's an amazing nature-related story, much better in direct translation than those silly, nonsensical children's folk summaries.

ps 02/25/12 - For a great video of the mute swan courtship, check out dreamfalcon.