Starfish Report 2023

Healthy adult P. ochreceus.

I conducted my informal annual survey of a local beach a few weeks ago and found the wasting-syndrome situation holding, relative to past years. The species recorded in the past are present in similar number, with a possible bump in the number of Pisaster ochraceus, the purple starfish. In that case I noted a heartening continued presence of adults with no noticeable infection or mutilation, supported by what I believe is a modest rise in the number of youngsters.

As this iconic North Coast star all but vanished at the height of the pandemic, I was touched to note this.

White E. troschelii.

With any good luck, this old friend is back to stay.

Evasterias troschelii, the mottled star, held the lead as the largest population on the tidelands since reclaiming first place from Dermasterias a few years back, though they still run small compared to pre-SSWS norms. Together with what may be signs of plague in two of the largest specimens, this may be a bit of a blue note. (See photographs; one individual appears unusually white about the disc, and a ray of another seems whiter and weaker than normal where it's been thrown over a cobble. Compare with the photos on this page. Again, I'm relying solely on 60 years of familiarity with the starfish of my homeland; this wasn't a scientific survey, and I may have misread the cues.)

So Evasterias may still be dying

Possible infected ray.

before it reaches full size. If so, the breeding population is keeping apace, so there are grounds to hope for an evolved solution.

For the rest, leather stars (Dermasterias imbricata) seem about as present as before, and sadly, Pycnopodia helianthoides, the sunflower star, and Pisaster brevispinus, the giant pink star, just as extinct. I wasn't able to observe the blood stars (Henricia leviuscula), which barely reach the intertidal zone, because the tide was a few feet higher than those I've caught in the past.

Final analysis: though the beach apparently still isn't clean, all in all, an encouraging show by the new normal.

Adolescent P. ochreceus.

WW: Elk Ridge trail

(This is the trail up Elk Ridge, just across the ravine from the jungle camp where I sat ango.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Ango

True nature;
It is on this mountain.
Because of the heavy mist, the exact location is unknown.

– An Ancestor's commentary on the Mumonkan.


(Photo of a North Coast mountain that looks remarkably similar to the one were I sat ango, courtesy of John Fowler and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Sea anemone eating a crab

(The anenome [suspect Urticina columbiana] is about the size of a teacup; the crab is Hemigrapsus oregonensis, the green shore crab.

Beach crabs are seldom swallowed by anemones; on the contrary, when below the waterline, these crabs often rest in the middle of an open anemone's tentacles for long periods. I suspect this bravado is down to the fact that they're hard as porcelain and quite intractable when challenged, which is why they have very few predators. So I have no idea what the story is here. This one was still perfectly healthy despite being half-gobbed, yet not trying in the least to escape. Perhaps he burrowed into the cnidarian deliberately, though to what end I've no better idea.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

Truth Meditation

"The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I’m looking for the truth,' and so it goes away."

Robert Pirsig


(Photo courtesy of Felix Luo and Unsplash.com.)

WW: Morse code radio

(My thirty-year-old OHR high-frequency CW [Morse code] transceiver, set up at the home of friends. My friends are biologists, and their fossil-sorting table was convenient on several levels.)

Appearing also on My Corner of the World.

My Hermit Hut

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic about the old meditation shed I had down at the beach, and it struck me that I've never actually posted on it, though others' huts have appeared here several times. (I did upload a named exterior shot ten years ago on Wordless Wednesday, but the others that have appeared from time to time were illustrating other topics, and so not identified.)

So in the interest of completism, here it is.

This tiny shack, the very picture of a true purist's definition of "hut", started life as my grandmother's potting shed. My grandfather carved it out of the bluff below their house, where I lived for ten years during the formative period of my Zen practice. When I arrived, the house and grounds were both in dire condition; eventually I hacked my way down to this cinderblock shanty, re-opening a steep, eroded goat trail through impenetrable brush. The door, which had been kicked in by a winter storm, lay on the floor inside; only the twisted wreckage of the lower hinge was still nominally attached.

In the intervening years blackberry and honeysuckle had invaded and filled the interior, along with bracken, lady fern, and infant trees, and the roof and wooden parts had rotted in places. Its concrete floor was completely saturated, covered with standing water and mud from infiltrated silt.

I really didn't need a place to sit, as the house – high on a bluff above the grey Pacific, with few neighbours – was already the best hermit hut in history. But rehabilitating one of my grandmother's work stations was an attractive premise, and the place would provide ground-level, fundamentally outdoor meditation, which I always prefer when available.

So I set-to, and after a lot of concentrated effort and scrounging of materials, ended up with this serviceable little squat. I even once sat an all-night sesshin there, hoping to glimpse the bear that left scat in front of it. (I didn't, but I did learn, not for the last time, that spring nights on the North Pacific are bitterly winter-cold.)

So here it is, my own hermit hut. Or to be perfectly accurate, my monastic playhouse. It might not have been strictly necessary, but I learned a lot of Zen there.