Good friends, good will, good luck, good food, good books, good health, and so forth, are some of the finer things in life. But how about nature? Edmund O. Wilson describes human "biophilia" as "the urge to affiliate with other forms of life". Ol' Bill Shakespeare (who I often find difficult to understand) stated that notion very well by noting "we are nature, too".
As for this biophiliac, what really turns me on is some good habitat - definitely one of the finer things in life. Good habitat is revealed in the details of nature, and is the result of the specific qualities - such as clean water, clean air, the geology and climate, etc. - of any given spot.
Why, just the other day I had major affinity with nature down on the south shore of Indian Island, here in Jefferson County. While most of the island is a naval weapons depot, the entire south shore of the island , from the Portage bridge to the passage on to Marrowstone Island, ( a wonderfully diverse bit of habitat) is a Jefferson County park with a lot of access, including a trail along the whole thing. You can really have a good time south of the navy's razor wire fence.
Actually, I was down there two days this week, Sunday evening, and Tuesday morning. Sunday was at high tide, and Tuesday at a low. Both times the shore birding was pretty good. In the shallow tidal channels within a salicornia salt marsh between Indian and Marrowstone islands, the muddy edges were hosting plenty of Least and Western Sandpipers, and quite a few Sanderlings. It was wonderful to see all these little birds at close range.
Salicornia itself, is a very interesting salt marsh plant, found at the reaches of the highest tides, it is an unusual vegetable, with short succulent stalks tasting of salt. Foodies have discovered (or rediscovered) this plant recently as an interesting edible. You can pickle the stuff - and I like just about any pickled item I've found so far- and I hope to try a pickled salicornia recipe some day. Salicornia ain't too bad raw- crunchy, salty, watery. Tuesday, I found the first salicornia blooms (it is a flowering plant) that I ever remember seeing.
As I tread along a tidal inlet, over the low and sort of gushy salicornia, I was amused at the crab commotion. The beaches here along south Indian Island are a center of abundance for the little shore crab Hemigrapsus oregonensis (pronounced "orry -gone- ensis" by people back east ). They love the mud and shallow gravelly tidal habitat here. There were thousands of these little, mostly greenish crabs scuttling all over the place.
Somewhat unlike their somewhat more sedate relative the Purple Shore Crab (known to every kid that ever turned over a rock on a rocky beach) , these greenies, are really zippy! They were running all over the place, underwater, and above. As I walked down the soft salicornia shore, my stomping must have sent a shock wave out into the mud shore ahead of me, as waves of little green crabs ran ashore and disappeared into their burrows in the mud shoreline. The burrows were packed together just a few inches apart and this mini-scene reminded me of stumbling into a Prairie Dog town, or ground squirrel colony - everybody into your hole! Anyhoo, it was a unique crab experience for me.
Walking back to more firma terra, getting off the salicornia onto shore, I walked up the bank under the shade of Garry Oaks. These wonderful trees, of sporadic occurrence in western Washington, are always a treat to see (the beach here is on the north end of the aptly named Oak Bay) and one of the finest specimens of oak here is almost the last tree along the shore before crossing over to Marrowstone Island: with a trunk several feet in diameter, about 50ft tall, and spreading as wide, its beautiful gnarly branches hang down to the highest tide mark. Not so many places where an oak overhangs a salicornia marsh and a muddy inlet, with sandpipers feeding beneath it. One of the finer places in life - mine anyway.
Jeff Gibson,inJefferson Co. Wa.