Geog 316 journal - Notes from Tomales Bay

This weekend friends of ours invited us to go camping and kayaking on Tomales Bay. We stayed at Lawson's Landing on Saturday night. Lawson's is interesting, it's right at the mouth of Tomales bay was likely a spit similar to Limantour or Seadrift, judging by the amount of dunes around. Most of the dunes had been taken over by european beachgrass, but I thought I had spotted some natives but my plant identification skills are novice. I say was a spit because it has been developed into a fairly large campground and the tip, Lawson's Landing itself, has been bulkheaded so the littoral drift and natural transport of sand has been altered. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon the tide was ebb exposing large mudflats.

There was quite an assemblege of birds picking around, likely feeding on invertebrates in the mud. There was distinct spatial separation to the feeding that corresponded with body type. The longer legged birds (like curlews, and herons) could move out further while the lighter smaller birds (sanderlings) could stay on the squisher mud with out sinking in. What was interesting was when the tide came in, the entire system was compacted into a mucThis weekend friends of ours invited us to go camping and kayaking on Tomales Bay. We stayed at Lawson's Landing on Saturday night. Lawson's is interesting, it's right at the mouth of Tomales bay was likely a spit similar to Limantour or Seadrift, judging by the amount of dunes around. Most of the dunes had been taken over by european beachgrass, but I thought I had spotted some natives but my plant identification skills are novice. I say was a spit because it has been developed into a fairly large campground and the tip, Lawson's Landing itself, has been bulkheaded so the littoral drift and natural transport of sand has been altered.

When we arrived on Saturday afternoon the tide was ebb exposing large mudflats. There was quite an assemblege of birds picking around, likely feeding on invertebrates in the mud. There was distinct spatial separation to the feeding that corresponded with body type. The longer legged birds (like curlews, and herons) could move out further while the lighter smaller birds (sanderlings) could stay on the squisher mud with out sinking in. What was interesting was when the tide came in, the entire system was compacted into a much narrower zone and there was not nearly the same diversity of birds that were there at low tide.

We paddled from Lawson's straight across the bay to Avalis beach. Along that western shore there's nice variety of nearshore habitat. I tried to stay close to shore, within the photic zone. As the shoreline changed from sandy to rocky, eelgrass beds started to show up and with them sea stars and smaller fish like jack smelt. It was easy to see how these areas serve as nurseries for fish in their early lifestage. I was even lucky enought to see a tiger shark and a ray. I could on and on about the simple pleasures of floating in a kayak and pondering biogeography.....look for more later.