Monday 18 August 2025
Warm weather has returned to coastal San Diego.
We saw plent of seaweed in the Quivira Basin, the reds, greens and browns. Large brown algae is called kelp. Eventually these seaweeds wash up on the shoreline and becomes an important food source for decomposers. Debris at the high tide mark is called “beach wrack”. It is food for beach hoppers and kelp flies that fuels the migration of shorebirds along the Americas. It also provides nutrients to the strand and complex dune systems amongst beach logs to provide habitat for plants and animals. Some shorebirds, such as the endangered Snowy plovers, lay their eggs on sand above the beach wrack. Dogs can disturb migrating and year-round coastal birds and impact their ability to raise young or rest after flying hundreds and thousands of miles. The Fall migration has begun, with shorebirds that nested in the Arctic north are making their way to their wintering grounds in Mexica, Central and South America. Usually the males come first, as they are typically not involved with the rearing of chicks to fledgling stage. The females, sub-adults come later. Most all of us live on a flyway. Here on the west coast of the North American continent we are on the Pacific Flyway.
We covered a lot of ocean, surveying for 90-minutes and coming across a superpod of Long-beaked common dolphins foraging over the 9-Mile Bank, about 10 miles beyond Bird Rock, LaJolla. There were around 750 dolphins over about 1.5-miles long and about 1/4-mile wide. We saw numerous interesting vessels on our way out and our way back in. Come join us for a dolphin and whale watching tour soon. -Naturalist Greg McCormack
