White-Faced Heron, Tide Pools [updated]

 A few shots from local beaches.

This beautiful bird was walking around down by the collaroy tide pools. It was about three feet tall, and it's a White-faced Heron:

An interesting fact about these birds:

When breeding, the birds have long feathers (nuptial plumes) on the head, neck and back.

"Nuptial plumes." Sexy.

Here's a bit of Eastern Rock Lobster (mentioned previously here):

A beautiful snail of some sort. Alive. (Update: Old friend Sara in the UK informs me that this is a cowry. Probably this one. It is a type of sea snail, but, as you can see, it has a uniquely shaped shell. Thank you, Sara!):

Same snail, underside:

This just to make my golfing friends jealous. The golf course about a twenty minute walk from home:

Some kind of tide pool creatures' homes washed up on the beach:

Weird, gelatinous creatures in a tide pool crevice:

One of the above creatures out of crevice:

Evidence of ancient beach civilization:

The lovely rocks of the upper tide pool area:

Crab

Crab in a pool of shells, Pebbly Beach, South Coast, NSW:

My First Blue Bottle Jellyfish Sting

So I was trying to catch beach worms the other day - more on that later - when Christine noticed the delicate tentacles of a dreaded blue bottle jellyfish around my legs.

Bluebottle tentacles will cause a sharp, painful sting if they are touched, which is aggravated by rubbing the area. Intense pain may be felt from a few minutes to many hours and develops into a dull ache which then spreads to surrounding joints. The affected area develops a red line with small white lesions. In severe cases blisters and weals looking like a string of beads may appear. Victims may exhibit signs of shock. Children, asthmatics and people with allergies can be badly affected and many cases of respiratory distress have been reported in Australia.

I took photos of blue bottles for this post. One, with one long tentacle displayed:

I must have gotten a baby, or something, because it was just a mild, annoying sting—although it did last for a couple hours. Here are the marks left on my ankle:

But let's look further into the blue bottle jellyfish—which isn't a jellyfish. And it's not one animal. A blue bottle is four different kinds of creatures, known as zooids, living together to form what seems to be one creature. One kind makes up the flotation bladder, another does the hunting, another still the eating and digesting, and yet another takes care of reproduction. (Why do I always have to do the digesting and Francis always gets reproduction? It's NOT. FAIR!) I'm not kidding:

The Bluebottle or Portuguese Man-of-War is not a single animal but a colony of four kinds of highly modified individuals (polyps). The polyps are dependent on one another for survival.

The float (pneumatophore) is a single individual and supports the rest of the colony. The tentacles (dactylozooids) are polyps concerned with the detection and capture of food and convey their prey to the digestive polyps (gastrozooids). Reproduction is carried out by the gonozooids, another type of polyp.

I'll be doing more on these fascinating creatures in the future, and on zooids in general, in the future.

Surf Fishing and Cunjavoi

Christine and I went to Fishermans Beach two evenings ago. The tide was very low, and a huge, flat section of what is usually sea-floor was exposed. Christine noticed gaping, purplish mouth-like things attached to rocks here and there.

They look like shells, but are actually a bit flexible, and very soft and smooth inside:




They're what remains of very curious creatures known as cunjavoi (Pyura Stolonifera), a type of sea squirt:

The Cunjevoi is a sea squirt found around the edge of the low-tide mark that often forms mats over the rocks. It is sometimes covered in green or brown algae and has a tough brown exterior or 'tunic'. During high tide, the Cunjevoi feeds on plankton as water is pumped in and out of its siphons. As the tide recedes, it holds water to keep from drying out and, like all sea squirts, squirts a jet of water like a water pistol when squeezed or trodden on at low tide.

They're normally very rough-loooking, but we're seeing cunjavoi that have been scooped:

Cunjevoi is an Aboriginal name and the animals were once a common food source for Sydney's Aboriginal people. Today, the Cunjevoi is popularly used as fishing bait. People cut the Cunjevoi, scoop out its soft insides and leave the hard tunic attached to the rock. However, the Cunjevoi is a protected species in some parts (marine reserves) of Sydney Harbour.

Their most bizarre characteristic, at least in my opinion, is that in the early stage of their life, they're free-swimming:

After spending their larval stage as a free swimming tadpole like larvae, with a distinctive nerve chord, adult animals are filter feeders that live permanently attached to the lower section of rocky shores.

But I was there to do some work—some fishing work. My first ever cast in Australia:



This made for a happy Thom (with an Aussie flag in the background):

Christine snapped some more fishing shots:

My favorite:

Christine took a shot of our pretty little street:

Soon we'll get some snorkeling shots. Soon: