black turnstone and surfbird ~ 11/29/13 ~ Coast Guard Pier

black turnstone (left) and surfbird (right)

Arenaria melanocephala (left) and Aphriza virgata (right)

The problem with self-study, like I do here on Nature ID, is that it's challenging to catch my own mistakes.  Fellow blogger John Rakestraw's recent post made me do a double-take of his last picture of two birds.  Hmm, the black turnstone and surfbird sure look a lot alike!  Have I been able to tell them apart before?  Based on my only confirmed sighting of surfbirds down in Morro Bay, I remembered them having yellow legs and being significantly heaftier than black turnstones.  Nope, they're only slightly larger.  It just so happened that as we were enjoying a post-holiday walk, we saw the two birds hanging out together along the Coast Guard Pier (apologies for the distance shot, but ever since they put up the fence on the Pier, good close-ups are hard to come by).  I really loved how different they look when they take flight, as Monika Wieland captured so well on her blog Orca Watcher - the black turnstone has the more striking white center strip down its back ending in a bold black spot, and the surfbird has a solid grey back.  As I was looking at my blog records, sure enough my only previous black turnstone post also shows the surfbird.  Right?  I made corrections.

habitat ~ 11/25/13 ~ Asilomar State Beach & Conference Grounds

Asilomar State Beach & Conference Grounds

November 25, 2013

I feel like I should appreciate Asilomar more than I do.  It's just 2 miles across town on the ocean side of the Monterey Peninsula, and the weather is often more so than the bay side with more wind and fog.  I hardly ever get over there, unless I'm visiting a friend or taking the scenic route home from the grocery store.  To roam around, I have to be in the mood to deal with the super fine, squeaky Asilomar sand that gets lodged between my toes (I still haven't found great shoes for walking in sand).  However, it really is a gem of a place.  I love the architecture, which was designed by Julia Morgan who also did Hearst Castle.  The Conference Grounds are currently going through a multimillion-dollar accessibility renovation.  It's looking very spiffy.

Pacific sand crab ~ 11/25/13 ~ Asilomar Beach

Pacific mole crab / Pacific sand crab

Emerita analoga

They look like delicately patterned cracked egg shells. At first, I didn't think these pics were ideal as an ID entry, but it occurred to me that I tend to see the carapaces of sand crabs more often than actual live crabs, which has been late at night while looking for grunion.  Are they nocturnal?  I'm assuming the numerous carapaces are from a mass molt, rather than a mass die-off of sand crabs, but I don't really know. I'm always amazed how the composition of wrack changes through the seasons. Here's a mixture of sand crab carapaces, various red seaweeds, and surf-grass. It's nature's compost by the sea.

ps - In the first photo, directly behind the right carapace, the out-of-focus green surf-grass is covered in pink-colored crusting red algae called Melobesia mediocrus.

habitat ~ 11/25/13 ~ Monterey Harbor & Marina

Monterey Harbor & Marina
November 25, 2013

I'm so glad we decided to stay home for the holiday.  With an easily walkable view like this, can you blame us?  Despite our desperate need for rain, I have been enjoying the gorgeous weather we've had.  This picture was taken from the Rec Trail that I so love. The City of Monterey has a nice site on the history of the Harbor, which I just discovered.  On this section of trail, I've been keeping an eye on a family of night herons, a laughing herd of Heermann's gulls, western gulls, several kingfishers, snowy egrets, great egrets, great blue herons, brown pelicans, and new seasonal gulls with spotty grey around the eyes that I have yet to ID.