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Journey Through Kelp (Video)
Baby bull kelp Bull kelp is so beautiful, especially now in the early spring when the young “sporophyte” stage is growing at an insanely fast rate. This kelp species, Nereocystis luetkeana, can grow to...
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Hooded mystery #2 – Hooded nudibranch swimming
See last week’s posting for Part 1 on the hooded nudibranch (Melibe leonina). Hooded nudibranchs (up to 10 cm) on giant kelp. This week, I share video showing this remarkable sea slug when it is...
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Below the Kelp
It’s the day before summer begins and . . . what a day it was. Bull kelp forest, housing an extraordinary amount and diversity of life. We had radiant sunshine and a flat-calm ocean during our dive...
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Every Breath You Take . . . .
© Jackie Hildering Er – sorry about that. Thanks to the blog title, you likely now have The Police’s stalker-ish lyrics playing annoyingly in your head. Let me take the Sting out of that for you. The...
View ArticleToday’s Dive – a photo essay and ode to Bull Kelp
Kelp forests – where would we be without them? Habitat for so many species, oxygen production, carbon dioxide buffering, navigation aid, food production, and then the astounding aesthetic beauty that...
View ArticleInto the Forest
Submerge into the forest with me. Escape for just a little while. Immerse into the beauty. Feel the fragility? Know your connection and reliance and . . . embrace the humility of it all. Hoping these...
View ArticleEnough Carbon Monoxide to Kill a Chicken ?
If you live on the West Coast, you may have heard someone say . . . “There’s enough carbon monoxide (CO) in Bull Kelp to kill a chicken”. Recently, while teaching a marine naturalist workshop, I was...
View ArticleWhat on Earth is “Alternation of Generations”?
Have you ever wondered how it can be that Bull Kelp forests largely die off in the winter but then reappear in the spring? Have you ever wondered about the light patches in the fronds of Bull Kelp as...
View ArticleHoldfast
Have you wondered about what holds down an underwater forest? It’s the holdfast. I spent the majority of a recent dive in a sun-soaked Bull Kelp forest. My hope was that the photos I took would...
View ArticleLife Begins Anew
Dear readers, look! Just look! These photos are from today. The baby Bull Kelp is growing toward the sun. With these images, I have tried to capture the aching beauty of the light “dancing” over the...
View ArticleKelp Lace? Bryozoans.
And so it begins. It’s the time of year when the annual kelps like Bull Kelp begin to break down. It’s then that Kelp-encrusting Bryozoans really get a chance to colonize the kelp as you see in these...
View ArticleAmber Forest
Sob! I am having a moment. The photos you see here are from the new exhibit “Seaweed: Mysteries of the Amber Forests” at the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea. Those are my kelp photos. I am choking up at...
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