These are what Mission Bells look like when they've gone to seed! Saw so many crazy seed pods today.
One of several species in this photo.
This is a beetle larva known as a "railroad worm" (genus Zarhipis). It preys on millipedes, eating a whole behind the head and crawling inside as it eats the rest. Charming!
This is the trap door of a spider, but I don't know what kind. I was kind of operating under the vague impression that some cyrtaucheniids made doors like this, but apparently they're not alone.
I was pretty happy about finding this. I am constantly looking for trapdoors on mossy embankments and I've only ever actually found one (also in Las Trampas, but up on the ridge). This time I saw a nearby structure that looked like a very low turret with what looked like the remains of a door, so I looked around nearby and found this.
You don't have to put on a silly suit, breath through a tube, and fall through 100 ft of water to see scenes like this, and yet I did!
When we were pulling our kayak up among the rocks, I saw all these yellow patches under the water that I thought were dead leaves. Turned out they were fish.
These Crocodile Needlefish were hovering at the surface. Way less skittish and a bit more creepy than their smaller cousins the keeltail needlefish.
Apparently these feed on plankton and algae, which would explain why they were schooling way above the reef.
These are supposed to be a little greener, so either this was a particularly dark individual or I got the white balance wrong.
Mostly sure about the ID here. It was definitely quietly hovering as described in the book.
Apparently the largest stand in the park. I don't know who lost them.
Thanks to naomi_bot on Flickr for the ID help.
About 1 cm long, observed at Scott Creek State Beach near Santa Cruz, CA, in the rock intertidal.
There are Common and Red-throated Loons wintering at Hamo. I also seem to be able to tell the Commons apart by the absurdly thick necks.
This hydroid was growing very abundantly along the stems of some algae in the rocky areas. I got a book on inverts of the sound, so we'll see if I can make any progress with this...
Well, the book I have (Weiss, Marine Animals of Southern New England and New York), doesn't go into much detail on the sertulariids, so I guess I'm stuck at the family level before I can get a more detailed reference.
These are somewhat common in the wrack, not sure I've ever actually noticed a live one before. I believe this is Anomia simplex, the Common Jingle.
Cooper's Hawk in the beech tree in our backyard! I think that's another new backyard bird for me.
There were a couple of these little isopods on the sand at the northern end of the beach. No idea what they are.
