Today the walls of Hardangerdjord soared around us. Great expanses of dark granite, streaked with snow-white cataracts, rose nearly vertically from the dark water to disappear into the mist and cloud. And, beneath the surface, those same walls plunged to equally great depths, leading down into darkness. While the guests went ashore to visit a small museum and learn about the creation of this landscape at the hands of the tremendous ice age glaciers, I dove along the walls near the head of the fjord, recording with the digital video this seldom visited doppelganger of the familiar valley above the sea.
Most interesting today were the sea-stars. There were literally thousands to be seen everywhere I looked, primarily the common red sea-star (Stichastrella rosea) with a few other species thrown in now and then. They littered nearly every surface, crawling rapidly over blades of kelp on their hundreds of tube feet, using those same marvelous appendages to search the soft sediment on the ledges for hidden prey and piling up on each other wherever food was to be found. I observed one feeding frenzy where at least twenty individuals had congregated on a small dead fish, and nearby I found two literally wrestling over a razor clam which one had extracted from the mud. Sea-stars are remarkable creatures, fierce predators with keen senses and powerful adaptations for capturing and subduing their prey. It was great to have this chance to observe and record so much of their behavior in a short time. Judging by its popularity with our group, sea-star wrestling has a real future as a spectator sport!
Most interesting today were the sea-stars. There were literally thousands to be seen everywhere I looked, primarily the common red sea-star (Stichastrella rosea) with a few other species thrown in now and then. They littered nearly every surface, crawling rapidly over blades of kelp on their hundreds of tube feet, using those same marvelous appendages to search the soft sediment on the ledges for hidden prey and piling up on each other wherever food was to be found. I observed one feeding frenzy where at least twenty individuals had congregated on a small dead fish, and nearby I found two literally wrestling over a razor clam which one had extracted from the mud. Sea-stars are remarkable creatures, fierce predators with keen senses and powerful adaptations for capturing and subduing their prey. It was great to have this chance to observe and record so much of their behavior in a short time. Judging by its popularity with our group, sea-star wrestling has a real future as a spectator sport!
