johnsr26's Journal
We went night lighting off the docks for one last time tonight. I have never seen that many fish off the dock before!! There was a GIANT school of anchovies along with a few other fishes here and there. It was super cold out there however, and even the dock was frozen! It was really a remarkable sight seeing all of those fish in the light. Definitely a great way to spend my last night here.
It's sad to say that tonight is my last night at the Friday Harbor Labs. This quarter has gone by so fast and I don't feel quite ready to leave yet. I have learned so much here and have some amazing times with some amazing people. We spent part of the evening photographing the nudibranchs that some of the students have been collecting. They had so many different species, which made for a very interesting and colorful collection. They were so much fun to take photographs of! I'm going to miss this place a lot. Being able to tide pool whenever you want, going night lighting off the dock, and seeing otters walking down the road in the middle of class... Friday Harbor is a wonderful place, and it was an experience I will never forget.
Last night I hung out with Steve (expert photographer) and learned how to take awesome pictures of cleared an stained fish in the collection here. It was really interesting learning different ways to photograph still subjects and get the lighting perfect. Especially with the cleared and stained fish, lighting is super important, and can make for an AWESOME photograph if it is right. I had a lot of fun learning about how he does things and he got a lot of amazing photographs from the evening. The cartilaginous fishes turned out so cool! I am really interested in learning more about "studio" photography, especially of really cool organisms. Hopefully I will have a chance in the future to learn more about it and pick it up as a hobby.
Our second to last Ichthyology lab was working with high speed video cameras. It was awesome to see and learn how to use these cameras! High speed cameras are great to be able to see specific movements of fish in a way that you can't see in normal speed. The ratfish was probably one of the coolest fish that we had, and I was really excited to be able to record it's swimming movements. Once we took the video and edited it, we uploaded it to YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umKwfcyL1Ds&feature=youtu.be
I really enjoyed having the opportunity to use the high speed cameras and I hope I have a chance to use them again!
This last Wednesday night when I was walking up from the labs to the dining hall, I saw a river otter hopping down near the path! They look pretty funny when the're walking. This is the third otter I've seen walking around campus in the past few weeks. The first one we saw during Ocean Circulation lecture two or three weeks ago. Then we saw another one this last week during our afternoon Ichthyology lecture. Despite all of these otter sightings on land, I have yet to see one in any water since I've been here...
The week before Thanksgiving, we took our last trip out on the boat to deploy some frames and collect video. We went out right before lunch -one of my favorite times to be out on the boat. It was a surprisingly calm morning and the sun even came out a little bit for us. We saw quite a few different sea birds and a few mammals as well, which is always a fun thing about being out on the water. It's a little sad that we've finished collecting data already. This quarter has gone by so quickly!
To take advantage of the beautiful and sunny weekend we had here, a group of us headed to Orcas Island on Saturday to hike Mount Constitution. Starting off at Mountain Lake, we hiked 7.5 miles round-trip up to the top of Mount Constitution (to the tower!) and back down past Twin Lakes. Our first viewpoint introduced a clear view of Mount Baker from a cold and windy open cliff. We saw our first bald eagle of the day there as it flew in front of us right at eye level! The rest of the hike consisted of similar view points, revealing more and more of the Salish Sea and surrounding San Juan islands each time. As we approached the top of the mountain, we noticed the change in scenery and the transition of the trees. In addition to the change of community, the elevation gain also introduced paths covered in thick ice crystals and numerous frozen pond/swamp-like areas. Every here and there, we came across bright green moss covered fields throughout the trees. On our trip back down, the trail brought us around past Twin lakes and back down to Mountain Lake. We saw some buffleheads hanging out in both lakes and by the time we reached Mountain lake again, we saw cedar trees growing along the water for the first time. The sunny weather made for an amazing hike on a beautiful island, despite the cold temperatures.
I was definitely excited to wake up and see the sun bright and shining today. After getting some work done, I took a nice adventure walk along the shore on campus. The island is so beautiful - we even saw a bald eagle! After spending a little time down on the dock we went for a row around Brown Island. We saw over 10 different Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) and a bunch of Glaucous Gulls (Larus hyperboreus) while we were out. Spent some more time on the dock when we got back to enjoy the last little bit of sunlight and then a great sunset. Hoping it stays clear tonight please no rain!) to go to some nightlighting down off the dock and see some cool fish!
Last Tuesday (11/6), we took the boat out to work on our research project here at UW's Friday Harbor Labs. My partner and I are assisting one of the grad students here with his community ecology work with Copper Rockfish (Sebastes caurinus). For our project we are looking at the predator-prey relationship between rockfish and shrimp, and figuring out a good way to assess shrimp predation. To do this, we drop frames at two different sites in the area. We took the boat out in the morning, and despite the overcast weather, it was quite peaceful. The water was calm and the rain had not yet begun and there were many animals out enjoying themselves. In addition to the MANY seabirds we saw, we also saw a lot of Harbor Seals (Phoca vitulina) and a few Harbor Porpoises (Phocena phocena). We set out both frames successfully, and deployed a GoPro camera with one so we could get some video footage. All in all it was a beautiful morning to be out on the water!
