We also saw a Mottled Star, another of the species most devastated by the epidemic.

The Mottled Seastar (Evasterias troschelii ) has thinner arms than the Purple/Ochre Stars. This one is an adult, next to a young Ochre Star. At other sites I’ve seen 6-legged Seastars, Sunstars, and Blood Stars.

Of course I like seeing any and all wildlife when I’m out in the kayak. Slight detours in the survey....

Moon Jellyfish (Aurelia aurita)

This old plastic bucket had several clumps of baby Pelagic Gooseneck Barnacles (Lepas anatifera) attached to it. The white barnacles are the common Acorn species, ubiquitous on all shorelines, but Pelagic Barnacles only settle on drifting surfaces.

Besides flat water and a reasonably bright sky, a moderately low tide is necessary for observing seastars. If the tide is very high, the seastars will be too deep to see. A super-low tide is no good though because down there all surfaces are covered with seaweed, with the seastars hiding underneath or even further down on bare rock. Seastars are Echinoderms — they can’t survive long out of the water. They climb up as far as they can to feed on barnacles and mussels but would rather stay safely immersed. Extreme high tides drop fast. A seastar waiting out a low tide in the dry intertidal will seek out a shady spot — hard to see.

We had a medium tide this day, as you can see by the mix of rock and seaweed on this shore.

Cruising along Harlequin Rock. It goes straight down about 40 feet here.

Along with my usual camera I brought a GoPro to see if I could get any underwater pictures. Here’s a comparison. Seen from above, the three baby Purple Seastars are just below the waterline, so we get a pretty good view of them,

above water view

while the same 3 seastars seen from below are less bright. Even a foot or so of water reduces visibility markedly. Note how in just the few minutes it took me to switch from one camera to the other how the seastars have moved. You can’t see them moving but they travel faster than you’d think. The photo at the top of the Bucket was taken ten minutes before these...the bluer baby seastar has traveled a foot in that time.

underwater view

This spot was a goldmine of baby Purple Stars. Besides the three here, there were 5 others a bit deeper, and 3 more just around the corner. They were all approximately 3” in diameter, which means they were born, I estimate, about 2 years ago. Last year’s seastars would be more like 1-1.5” now. This means some individuals survived the worst of the epidemic and reproduced; these 11 are of that cohort. There are more I know, beyond my sight. This is a very hopeful sign!

Other sea life I was able to peek at using the underwater camera:

Mating Red Rock Crabs (Cancer productus).

At least 5 kinds of seaweed surround them, including the Iridescent sea weed.

Green Sea Urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis)

More young Purple Stars amid the green Sea Lettuce seaweed, and a Hooded Nudibranch! The Hooded nudi (Melibe leonina) attaches itself to a surface and sweeps the water for passing food with its tentacled hood. That “mane” around its hood is leonine.

Seastar Wasting Syndrome has hit seastars hard along the west coast. We know the pathogen that sickens them, a densovirus, and that some environmental factors have been linked to its spread, like higher water temperatures than usual in some locations. But the outbreak is not as simple as that. Scientists at Oregon State University have been monitoring seastars along the coast for years and report:

“Something triggered that virulence and it happened on a coast-wide basis,” said Menge, a distinguished professor in the Department of Integrative Biology in OSU’s College of Science. “We don’t think it was a result of warming because conditions were different in Oregon than they were, for example, in Washington and likely other parts of the West Coast. Ocean acidification is one possibility and we’re looking at that now. Ultimately, the cause seems likely to be multi-faceted.”

However they are measuring a recovery in Oregon, and the UC Santa Cruz SSWS monitoring program reports the same. There have been relatively few reports of diseased seastars compared to the last two summers. My own observations are consistent with these region-wide data, and Ron K up north in Bellingham Bay is seeing quite a few too. I’ll continue surveying seastars over the summer, and report what I find at the Bucket.

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The Daily Bucket is now open for your nature observations. Tell us what you’re seeing in your own natural neighborhood these days. Seen any wild animals around where you live?