Tag Archives: aquatic

The Last Days for These Salmon

Puget Sound gets runs of different species of salmon throughout the year. I had heard of some of them but only recently became aware of chum salmon. Not particularly good to eat, by all accounts, these run in the October to November time-frame. Carkeek Park in Seattle has a river that they come to in order to spawn. We paid it a visit. The salmon stop eating once they leave the sea, so they are using up their remaining energy to go upriver before the mate and die.

The river was quite shallow, so they had to work hard to get up against the current and up some of the steps the riverbed took. The river was scattered with the bodies of dead salmon. I don’t know whether they had already mated and then died or whether they didn’t have the energy to make it upriver. Some of the fish still swimming had taken on the yellow look of the dead fish, and I wondered whether they weren’t going to make it much further.

While there were loads of fish, getting good images was a challenge I didn’t seem to do well with. Even with a polarizer, the reflections on the surface and the low light levels made things tricky. A fish underwater is not a great subject anyway. Watching what was happening, I felt that video was going to be the better bet, so I filmed the fish as much as I took stills. Below is a video of some of the highlights from our visits.

Gulls Fight the Sea Lion

Recent visits to the locks at Ballard have included sightings of some large male sea lions. The seals are a regular feature, but these big boys have not previously been so common. We were watching one of them swim a little further away from us and getting a lot of attention from a flock of gulls. The reason the sea lions are showing up is that salmon must be on the move. The concentration of the fish at the locks makes it a good hunting spot for them.

I had the camera trained on the area that the gulls were swarming around, and the sea lion came up out of the water. The flash of pink in his mouth gave away that he had a salmon which he had caught. I couldn’t see what was happening in real time but going through the images afterwards, I could make out the sequence of events. The sea lion had caught the salmon and then seemed to have bitten off the head. There were bits of fish in the water and that was attracting the gulls. Then the sea lion picked up the body of the fish and flipped it around until it went down his throat in one chunk. No head but everything else with the tail the last to disappear. Maybe the gulls got a few morsels, but the sea lion took the (sea) lion’s share.

The Seals They Be a Frolicking

On a sunny weekend afternoon at Ballard Locks, we were treated to a lot of seal activity. The salmon were not running so I am not sure why the seals were there in such numbers, but they were. Two in particular, seemed to be having a bunch of fun together. They were playing a lot – occasionally pausing to just cruise around before getting back into their play. Everyone was fascinated and I imagine there was a lot of cell phone footage of them from that day.

Sea Lions Off Fort Casey

I was strolling along the ridge above the beach at Fort Casey when a group of people ahead of me called out to each other about some sea lions off the shore.  Sure enough, there they were when I got to the edge and I could see three of them swimming around.  Looked like a male and two females from a distance.  I was heading down to the beach anyway so wondered if they would still be around when I got down there.

It turned out that they were not moving too far, and they were close to the shore as I walked by.  The sun was almost directly behind them, so it wasn’t an ideal time to be watching the wildlife, but I sometimes found myself offset enough to get a glimpse of them.  Of course, when you are close to sea level, your ability to track them and get good shots is a bit limited but still worth a go.

Crabs Hunting in the Rocks at Edmonds

Nancy and I were walking along the shore in Edmonds and decided to stroll out on the fishing pier.  This follows the line of the breakwater for the marina and the large rocks that the breakwater is constructed from make for a good habitat for wildlife.  We saw a starfish on one area but, since they don’t move too quickly, it was not much fun to watch.  However, there were a couple of crabs lurking down there.  One was just hanging in its little space waiting for something to come its way.  Another was a lot more active and was making good progress across the rocks.  I got a bunch of still shots but also played with a little video as you can see below.

Fishes In The Test

The River Test runs through the grounds of Mottisfont and there is a diverted section of it that runs through a very unnaturally straight section of river near the house.  As we walked along the path by this section, we saw a couple of fish in the water.  As we moved on, we realized that there were loads of them.  To my untrained eye, they looked like they might be trout but I am not an angler or any sort of sim expert.  I got some photos of them but video seemed like the best bet so I had a good at that too.  Can you identify them?

Salmon Climbing The Ladder

The salmon that come through the locks in Ballard come in three waves according to the park rangers.  There are three types of salmon and each type comes at a slightly different time of year.  (I’m sure the sales like this so they get three feeding times!). Within the fish ladder, they have a viewing gallery which allows you to see the fish as they loiter for a while before surging up the next step in the ladder against the flowing water.

It is quite impressive to see how fast they can go when they make an effort.  They swim gently against the current in the viewing area waiting for a time that seems appropriate to them.  Then they align themselves with the inlet port through which the water is rushing.  This needs a dose of acceleration to avoid being pushed back into the gallery and then, once they are stabilized, a surge of effort and they zip up the port.  Photos don’t do it much justice but video is a better medium.  The reflections off the glass are not ideal but you will get the idea.

A Tree Trunk Supporting Sea Life

The Pacific Northwest shorelines are strewn with tree trunk.  Whether they have been washed in to the see or are strays from the logging business, doesn’t matter.  There are tons of them everywhere.  This one was on Cannon Beach.  I have no idea where it originally came from but it had washed up here at some point and got quite established in the sand.  The surface of the wood had become the home of a multitude of sea creatures.  It was festooned with them.  I wonder how much they depend on it staying there or, if it gets washed out again in the next storm, they would be in trouble.

Baby Catfish En Masse

I am no specialist on fish (or any other wildlife for that matter) so, if I have got this wrong, please feel free to correct me in the comments.  I was down at Juanita Bay seeing what wildlife was out an about.  I was on one of the boardwalks and looking in to the water to see if there was anything in there.  I saw a black mass seeming to pulse and move.  I was confused as to what it might be but the long lens gave me a clearer view of things.  It was a massive amount of baby fish.

My previous disclaimer comes in to effect here.  I think they were catfish based on the shape of the mouth and the barbs but that could be totally wrong.  Let’s assume for now that they were.  There was hundreds of them, if not thousands.  They were moving around furiously but staying closely packed together for safety.  The group would gradually move around and migrate through the plant life.  Occasionally, a group would split off into a second section and then later they would somehow find each other again and regroup.  They looked almost alien as they swirled and moved.  I did take stills, as you can clearly see, but video seemed like the better way to convey the impression that they left.

Leaping Fish

If you stand by Juanita Bay for a few minutes, you will see fish leaping out of the water periodically.  The carp are spawning and they leap out all the time.  Getting a shot of a leaping fish seems like it would be almost impossible since you couldn’t know where they would be leaping next and getting lined up would not be possible in the tiny instant that they are out of the water even if you did see them immediately.  However, there is some hope.

For some reason, the fish will often leap twice in roughly the same place.  However, they only seem to do it when you are not training your camera on the spot where they last came out.  I will watch with the camera down and see them jump again and again.  Bring the camera up and they don’t play ball – normally.  However, I did get lucky on one occasion.  I got a second leap as I pointed the camera at the location of the previous ripples.

I had an even better chance on a later date.  I was staring down into the water and could see the shape of a carp as it swam just below the surface.  I didn’t know whether it would be possible to get a clear shot of it in the water but started tracking it anyway.  Then it turned and came out of the water right below me.  I couldn’t have been better placed to get the shot.  I’ll take a good dose of luck any time.