Sunday, December 01, 2019

Ucluelet

We wanted to visit the aquarium so we drove over to Ucluelet for the day. Waiting for the aquarium to open I took a few photos around the dock.

Interesting reflections with a common merganser going by

Merganser and reflections

This Black Turnstone (I looked it up later) was skittish and didn't really want its picture taken. In flight it had a beautiful pattern on its wings. I took photos of related Ruddy Turnstones in Belize last winter.

Black Turnstone

This crow was working on getting the marrow out of a bone of some sort. It didn't care if I took photos of it. (That's frost on the wood.)

crow

Across the bay I spotted the white head of a bald eagle in a tree but it was too far away for decent photos. There were also jelly fish floating in the water beside the dock.

This sparrow (Lincoln's?) was also a cooperative subject, although it didn't stay in one spot for very long.

Lincoln's Sparrow (?)

We visited the Ucluelet aquarium quite a few years ago when it was in the previous tiny building. At that time they were raising money for a new building (we donated). It was nice to see the new building - quite an improvement. It's not a huge fancy aquarium like the Vancouver one, but it's run by a non-profit society and it's interesting because it's a catch and release aquarium so everything is local. One of the tanks has been running for years. It started out with a bare chunk of concrete. The water is circulated from the ocean and the concrete is now completely covered and encrusted with a huge variety of creatures that colonized it from the water.

I would have loved to take more photos, but the sides of the tanks weren't very clear and taking photos through the surface doesn't work that great.

This sea urchin was poking out of the water, and very colorful.

sea urchin closeup

A different anemone from the kind you see in the tide pools

sea anemone

And this starfish was just below the surface. The details on these creatures are fascinating.

starfish leg closeup

This is a closeup of the top of a starfish

starfish top closeup

I didn't quite manage to get all of this snail in focus

sea snail closeup

We had lunch at the Black Rock Oceanfront Resort restaurant that had a great oceanfront view.

We also did a few hikes in the area on the Wild Pacific Trail. It doesn't seem fair that the Salal is flowering when it's full on winter at home.

Salal flowers

This looks a bit like another flower, but I think it's just leaves changing color

leaves

The sun was melting the frost on these cedar branches

melting frost on cedar

Another Bald Eagle in the distance. When we tried to move closer it flew away.

Bald Eagle

And a few reflection shots because I can't resist them. This is the reflection of a log

reflection of log

reflections

See all 16 photos in this album

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