I promised some pictures of plum blossoms earlier. Here are a few shots of the ones outside of my Board of Education--
...and more from my neighborhood. There are some perks to being set back in the middle of the mountains. Beautiful backdrops for plum blossoms!
This is an amazing plum tree which overhangs the river that runs along my road--
...and my favorite 'manicured' plum tree in a private garden on my road. I like how the branches are weepy like a willow or cherry tree.
...what's below the plum tree? Another sign of spring-- daffodils!
It's remained fairly cool lately, but today was surprisingly gorgeous weather. I'd planned to do a bunch of cleaning but instead biked to the beach... which is becoming my standard weekend escape-from-the-apartment excursion. I always find something new there.
The water was a gorgeous blue today.
...and the tide was out, letting me explore the bonzai-tree island without having to wade. I'd never seen the rock formations while the tide was out and thought the shapes were really cool. You'd think a sometimes-island would eventually be smoothed over like a stone, but the tides have instead gouged out crevices and pockmarks in the rock.
...parts of the rock even look like they were carved away by in a fluid paintbrush stroke.
A busload of tourists came so I got out of their way and was meandering around the rocks off to the side of the beach when I ran into Joey. He pointed me in the direction of some excellent tidepools.
Out in the tidepools, I ran into a Korean biogeographer who was collecting hermit crabs to conduct a comprehensive study comparing the DNA of Korean and Japanese crabs. It made me kind of nostalgic for science. I made quite a few interesting discoveries of my own, though, even without a BA in biology.
...and the tide was out, letting me explore the bonzai-tree island without having to wade. I'd never seen the rock formations while the tide was out and thought the shapes were really cool. You'd think a sometimes-island would eventually be smoothed over like a stone, but the tides have instead gouged out crevices and pockmarks in the rock.
...parts of the rock even look like they were carved away by in a fluid paintbrush stroke.
A busload of tourists came so I got out of their way and was meandering around the rocks off to the side of the beach when I ran into Joey. He pointed me in the direction of some excellent tidepools.
Out in the tidepools, I ran into a Korean biogeographer who was collecting hermit crabs to conduct a comprehensive study comparing the DNA of Korean and Japanese crabs. It made me kind of nostalgic for science. I made quite a few interesting discoveries of my own, though, even without a BA in biology.
In one of the tidepools, I was lucky enough to spot a sea slug. It's not as colorful as some of the ones I saw while scuba diving last summer, but it was possibly cooler because I could study it without worrying about my air supply, the current pulling me away, or my safety buddy going off to examine other things.
The sea slug used the two feeler-like apendages to the left to examine its surroundings before moving forward. Its hind end is ribbony and flutters like seaweed moving with the current; highly effective at blending in, I may not have noticed it if it hadn't been in a tide pool cut off from the current. The sea slug was really amazing to watch.
I also found a ton of sea urchins.
...they weren't as interesting to watch as the sea slug (didn't move at all, actually), but for some reason this cluster of them reminded me of the animate dust balls in Miyazaki's animated films. I could see them taking part in "Spirited Away" 's furnace room, helping Chihiro chuck charcoal into the flames. 
The sea slug used the two feeler-like apendages to the left to examine its surroundings before moving forward. Its hind end is ribbony and flutters like seaweed moving with the current; highly effective at blending in, I may not have noticed it if it hadn't been in a tide pool cut off from the current. The sea slug was really amazing to watch.
I also found a ton of sea urchins.
...they weren't as interesting to watch as the sea slug (didn't move at all, actually), but for some reason this cluster of them reminded me of the animate dust balls in Miyazaki's animated films. I could see them taking part in "Spirited Away" 's furnace room, helping Chihiro chuck charcoal into the flames.This is a bit of seaweed that I just thought looked pretty. It seems almost flower-like and different from the other seaweed.
...that pretty much sums up today's seashore exploration adventure. ^^
2 comments:
Whoa! Two post in March already, twice as many as February, and significantly increasing the totals for 2009! :-)
Nice pictures; you're clearly living in a tropical paradise. Such a deal.
Dude it's only tropical, like, June-September. I'm still layering with the same LL Bean long underwear you take on your winter wilderness camping trips... and that's just to keep warm while at school.
I'm glad to know that you're so concerned with my blog stats ;) ...although I think the 2008 posts were massively padded with notes to the yamori, who have yet to make a spring come-back. I think they're still in hibernation.
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