Diario de randallgood

As the tide receded, I found a pair of Octopi reaching out to each other overland between two pools. I suspected amorous intent. Both were light in color so at first I thought it was just one large octopus. But then after it realized I was there, the one reaching out the most switched to a mottled brown, much darker. The one staying under the rock remained white as the dark one continued reaching out. As I was angling for a better photo/video, I noticed in the larger pool directly below a few feet away, at the outflow where water from the octopi pool was draining into an object swaying up out the water - it looked like another octopus tentacle at first! So I went to look, and realized immediately it was a large 2-3' long California Moray Eel! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/196458949 This Eel was trying very hard to get up the outflow into the next pool, presumably to get at those two octopi. So much so that it appeared semi amphibious in it's behavior. Has anyone observed an Eel leaving a tidepool to go into another one? That's what this one was trying to do. I'll ink video of it here soon.
My knees were shaking from such a rare (for me) observation. I spent some time photographing and talking to both the Eel (it finally left through the aptly named Eel Grass), and the Octopi. The Brown one was pretty red and I realized it wasn't too happy with my being there so I headed out, looking for other things to find in the tidepools. There was only one other Tide Pool Enthusiast out there that day, he arrived after I saw all this. Great Day!

Another tide pool gathering of students, alumni, family, and friends. We checked around the same area of Pelican Point. Encouraging to find a brittle star (Ophiuroidea) but no Ochre Stars still. Evidence of octopus activity with Lobster carapaces, but haven't actually found an octopus in a few years. Of course fun to keep looking. Got 6 more people to use iNaturalist at the hobby/enthusiast level.
Next day, parents called me camping in Yosemite. "What is that App you use to ID organisms?" Retired Biology professor and elementary teacher / amateur botanist. They started using it too! Yay iNaturalist! Next paycheck I will contribute because this is such a great app and site.

First of all, let it be made clear that tidepooling is often subject to random events that affect what you see. Although it's very predictable to find certain species at the different zones, there are some species that everyone figures to be around but don't always see.

Since I've been coming to Crystal Cove's northernmost spot (Pelican Point) to bring students and family to tidepool on and off a few times per year for 25+ years, anecdotal evidence given the kind of randomness one sees isn't as strong as someone doing a transect every week.

Yet this project, moving forward, might help to mark the changes.

The decline of Ochre Stars is documented with the pathogen that caused a strange wasting illness (http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2018/018827/wasting-away). Supposedly they are evolving and making a rebound (https://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Starfish-on-California-coast-nearly-wiped-out-by-13018262.php), but I haven't seen any around here yet this year. The Mussel Beds are gone off the point rocks, lots of smaller ones growing in small clusters, so it's possible the Ochres haven't returned because the mussels aren't there.

Interesting to me is the seemed appearance of a snail species I hadn't seen here before, Three winged Murex (Pteropupura trialata). Maybe they've always been here, but I find it surprising that in three visits this Fall 2018 I've seen multiples of this snail each visit and none ever prior to this. According to sources, they range normally in this area (http://www.gastropods.com/4/Shell_1424.shtml), but again I haven't seen them in these numbers here before.

Since populations in this area can often experience a boom-bust cycle due to local changes that come and go (ie extra sand from sandbar activity up the coast), but the Mussel decline is well documented (https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/23/a-hunt-for-the-invasive-dark-unicorn-snail-shows-uci-students-how-climate-change-is-altering-crystal-cove-tide-pools/), I'm interested in keeping track of what is here to stay versus what is just taking hold or making an invasion from somewhere else.