A Day in the Life of a Field Tech: Eelgrass Monitoring, by Blake Toney

A staff member stands in waders in a puddle on the mudflat.

In today’s post, Blake Toney, former Morro Bay National Estuary Program Field Tech, reflects on an early morning spent monitoring eelgrass during a very low tide in Morro Bay. 5:40 a.m. I arrive at today’s site a few minutes before my coworkers to get my bearings. The sun will not rise for another hour, but already the dark sky has begun to take on a hint of blue so faint it becomes harder to see when I concentrate on it. The moon provides some light, enough for me to trek out across the mud after struggling to fit into my …

Field Updates January 2020: Eelgrass Success and Creek Water Quality

February 14, 2020 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program creek stage creek water quality eelgrass eelgrass loss eelgrass plots eelgrass restoration MBNEP monitoring morro bay morro bay national estuary program morro bay watershed restoration Blog Posts Field Updates

This month, our field staff have been busy monitoring eelgrass success in the bay and water quality in the creeks that drain to the Morro Bay estuary. Eelgrass monitoring and restoration success If you spent time out on the bay in January, you might have noticed the really high tides. January 2020 had King Tides, meaning that the high tides were much higher than normal. These extreme high tides are mirrored by extreme low tides. We always take advantage of these extreme low tides to monitor eelgrass, as we have a wider window than normal to conduct our monitoring. Eelgrass …

Field Updates November 2019: Eelgrass, wildlife sightings, weather

December 6, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program eelgrass field updates field work fieldwork MBNEP monitoring morro bay morro bay national estuary program multispectral imaging restoration sea grass Field Updates

November was a busy month for our field staff. Mapping eelgrass and algae The Estuary Program has been mapping submerged vegetation, such as eelgrass and algae, for more than fifteen years. This is done by having a plane fly over the bay taking a series of images, including a multispectral image. We try to repeat this survey about every other year, with 2019 being an eelgrass flight year. Multispectral imagery Multispectral imagery is produced by sensors that measure the reflected energy within several bands of the electromagnetic signature, usually capturing light not visible to our eyes. You can …

Field Updates, October 2019: Eelgrass Mapping, Ground-truthing, and Cal Poly Partnerships

November 8, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program cal poly CalPoly eelgrass eelgrass loss eelgrass map eelgrass restoration estuary program field update fieldwork mapping MBNEP monitoring morro bay multispectral imaging restoration seagrass volunteer Field Updates

Eelgrass fieldwork depends on tides Fall is a busy eelgrass season for field staff at the Estuary Program. The exact timing of our field work depends on when the good low-tides occur, which varies slightly from year to year. This year, October had a few days that had tides low enough to expose the eelgrass during daylight hours. This doesn’t always happen—sometimes the low tides we need happen after sundown and before sunrise. We were glad to see good tides in combination with good timing because we have a few different projects going on. Monitoring permanent eelgrass plots First …

Field Updates September, 2019: Stream Profiling and Bay Monitoring

October 4, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program auto level autolevel survey bay monitoring creek profiling eelgrass field updates field work MBNEP morro bay national estuary program stadia rod stream profiling water quality Field Updates

Fall is in full effect here on the Central Coast, and we are enjoying the crisp mornings and clear days that go along with it. Fall is typically the slowest time of year for fieldwork so we are mostly catching up on activities back here at the office and planning upcoming projects, but that’s not to say we haven’t been out in the field this month. Thank you, cleanup volunteers! We hope some of you got out this month for Creeks to Coast Cleanup Day, where nearly 2,000 wonderful volunteers picked up about 11,500 pounds of trash from our …

Cuesta College dives in to help study eelgrass declines in Morro Bay

September 20, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program cal poly cuesta college Dauphiene Parks eelgrass estuary program field work genetic testing labyrinthula Laurie McConnico MBNEP microbiology morro bay morro bay national estuary program research study science students Silvio Favoreto slime mold Field Updates Guest post

A guest post by Dauphiene Parks During June 2019, a group of fourteen spirited Cuesta College Marine Microbiology students came together under the kind and careful guidance of professors Laurie McConnico and Silvio Favoreto. The mission was to explore the Morro Bay Estuary and examine the local eelgrass population. We quickly learned that 97% of the eelgrass in the Morro Bay Estuary has been lost, and that eelgrass habitats can provide an estimated $87,000 in ecosystem services annually. We were excited to be a part of this class that allowed us to earn college credit and work on a …

Field Updates, August 2019: Creeks, Stream Profile Survey, Upper Watershed Views

September 6, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program aggradation ca erosion field updates field work fieldwork great blue heron MBNEP monitoring morro bay morro bay national estuary program Morro Bay views restoration road restoration roads project rolling dips stream profile watershed Field Updates

As summer winds down here along the Central Coast, schools are back in session and fall is just around the corner. Though this time of year is slower for field work as most of the field team is busy entering data and writing reports on our various projects, we still got to check out a few different places in our beautiful watershed. Creeks Our long-term monitoring program in the creeks continues with our staff and the help of volunteers. To see what we use the data we gather for, or learn more about what we do out at …

Floodplain Restoration Project Sneak Peek in Photographs

September 2, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program california conservation corps creek restoration estuary program field work fieldwork flood plain floodplain floodplain restoration MBNEP monitoring morro bay restoration riparian area riparian restoration Watershed Stewards Program Field Updates Photograph Friday

Estuary Program staff and many of our partners, including the California Conservation Corps, the Watershed Stewards Program, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, have been hard at work on a large-scale floodplain restoration project in the Morro Bay watershed. This Labor Day, we are sharing a few photographs from the project site to celebrate the efforts of everyone involved in this project. From those with their boots on the ground to those involved in the land purchase, planning, and permitting processes, every single person who has worked on this longterm endeavor has contributed something essential. We …

Field Updates, June & July 2019: Creeks, Road Restoration, Eelgrass

August 2, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program Camp SLO eelgrass erosion gully MBNEP monitoring morro bay morro bay national estuary program restoration road repair shorebird Field Updates

Shows a volunteer conducting water quality monitoring

With summer in full swing, field staff at the Morro Bay National Estuary Program have greatly appreciated the long days. As always, we have been busy out in the field, collecting data from the watershed. Here are some of the things we’ve been up to recently. Creeks Our ongoing monitoring effort of the two subwatersheds, Chorro Creek and Los Osos Creek, that drain into Morro Bay allow long term trends to be established and we can see if current conditions vary from historical patterns. Chorro Creek is the main creek in our watershed, draining about 60% of the total …

Field updates April & May 2019: Monitoring Eelgrass and Creek Health

June 7, 2019 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program bioassessment chorro creek eelgrass field work fieldwork los osos creek macroinvertebrates MBNEP monitoring morro bay morro bay national estuary program national estuary research volunteers Field Updates

Two members from the Watershed Stewards Program lay out eelgrass blades on a white board for counting and photographing.

Fieldwork season is in full swing now for us here at the Morro Bay National Estuary Program, and we have been busy hiking around the creeks and estuary to continue monitoring our local watershed. In April and May, we monitored eelgrass and conducted bioassessment monitoring to help us see how healthy our creeks are. Eelgrass monitoring Eelgrass monitoring continues as usual when the tides are low enough to let us collect data. This past month, there was a good window spanning multiple days where we were able to monitor for a couple hours each day to check on …