Sunday, July 13, 2014

Ciabatta bait

After a lecture in the morning, our first day of field work started with a brief tour of some of the species that can be observed from Long Wharf. Just outside of the Marriott hotel we fed ciabatta bread to some pretty huge striped bass. I was surprised at how easy it was to start a bass feeding fest so close to shore, and at how big they were. I gather that Bruce is out there tossing quality North End food into the water on a regular basis, so that probably has a significant effect on the size of the fish.

Next up we saw what seemed to be a cormorant, diving for fish near the end of the wharf. His tastes seemed rather crude, so we gave him no Italian food.


On the side of a houseboat we looked at what looked like different types of seaweed. I didn't get a good picture of it, so I can't identify what types there were, but I did notice something bright orange among the leafy things; it looked a bit like mushrooms you might find growing on the side of a tree. I can't be sure, but they might have been orange sheath tunicates.

Before we got on the boat to tour the harbor, we took one more look at some species close to the shore. In this case there were some large stones covered in two types of seaweed and encrusted in barnacles.



Finally we boarded the boat for a tour of the harbor. I didn't observe much wildlife during the trip besides some humans having a bad day.


The harbor tour was nice. The sunburn I got was not. I'll be upgrading to 70 SPF for the next class.

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