Dear Community, It’s the annual announcement that always gives me great joy while also feeling like a big relief. Next year’s WILD Calendar is now available. Thank you so much to all who helped by voting on the selection of my photos. The 2026 WILD Calendarscan be ordered at this link.
My WILD Calendar is aimed at creating awareness about the diversity and fragility of life hidden in the cold, dark, life-sustaining northeast Pacific Ocean. It is the waters dark with plankton that have more life, produce more oxygen, and buffer more carbon dioxide.
It’s the 17th year I have made a WILD Calendar. It’s truly moving to feel the support from you who put these calendars into the world. You are helping increase connection and understanding of our reliance on the Ocean. That’s needed to make the decisions, day-by-day, that consider future generations – from whales, to octopuses, nudibranchs, sea stars, and our own very strange, two-legged species. 💙
Each month’s photo has a detailed descriptor included about the featured marine life. The calendars are $28.50 + tax.
They are large and printed on sturdy paper on Vancouver Island, coil bound with a hole to hang them. 33 x 26.5 cm closed and 33 x 53 cm open (13 x 10.5″ closed /13 x 21″ open).
There are BIG spaces to write your daily adventures. Text is included to indicate when there is a full moon (PDT).
Beauty amid the debris: Mosshead Warbonnet living in a beer bottle. Natural habitat would be a crevice or a tube-worm tube. Glass is by far not the worst debris or pollutant in the ocean. But the ocean is not where any of our waste belongs. Up and down our coast, there is evidence of garbage purposely “deposited” as if it were a black hole into which waste disappears. This is testament to the extreme disconnect between human health and marine health, and ignorance about the marine life “hidden” in these dark waters thick with plankton. May a fish face make a difference. Chirolophis nugator to ~15 cm long.
February 2026 image and text
Candy Stripe Shrimp on a Crimson Anemone: They must be immune to the anemone’s stinging cells (nematocysts). The shrimp benefit from snacks (anemone poop and sloughed tissues) and the anemone may get protection. Greg Jensen of “Crabs and Shrimps of the Pacific Coast” observed in his aquarium that Candy Stripe Shrimp would share space on an anemone with Kincaid’s Shrimp but immediately attacked Snyder’s Blade Shrimp – a species believed to harm the anemone. Candy Stripe Shrimp (Lebbeus grandimanus) to 4.5 cm long. Crimson Anemone (Cribrinopsis rubens) to 30 cm tall and only described as a distinct species in 2018.
March 2026 image and text
Flowing underwater forest: Young Bull Kelp growing toward the sun — providing habitat, refuge, oxygen, carbon buffering, food for many species, and even serving as a navigation aid. Bull Kelp is an annual species. Most of what you see here (the sporophyte) dies off in winter. The sporophyte results from the reproduction of a completely different version of Bull Kelp — the very small gametophyte. The stipe (stem-like structure) can grow up to 36 m in length. The stipe has to grow an average of 17 cm per day over the ~210-day growing period (source: Druel) to drink in the sunlight, photosynthesize, and help sustain life on Earth — above and below the surface.
April 2026 image and text
Magnificent acrobats: Northern Opalescent Nudibranch feeling their way over Eelgrass. The structures extending upward from the head are the rhinophores by which they “smell” their way around. At the base of each rhinophore is an eye with 5 photoreceptor cells to sense light and dark. Species is up to 8 cm long and was reclassified as Hermissenda crassicornis in 2016. Where the ranges of 2 Hermissenda species overlap, this one is now often referenced as the Thick-horned Nudibranch. But, as I have stated previously, who wants to be called “thick” when you can be called “opalescent”?! Let’s go with Northern Opalescent Nudibranch.
May 2026 image and text
All mothers great and small: Female Brooding Anemone with her young benefitting from the protective canopy of her tentacles (Epiactis lisbethae to 8 cm across). There can be up to 300 offspring. Eggs are fertilized in the mother’s digestive cavity with sperm she has captured. The young develop inside her until they hatch into planktonic larvae. Then, they swim out of her mouth, settle on her body, and grow into little anemones that feed independently. Ultimately, they will shuffle off toward independence. Breeding in Brooding Anemones is seasonal – spring/summer. As a result, the young clustered around the mother’s column are all of a similar age and size.
June 2026 image and text
Sea Otter and Geoduck: Sea Otters were wiped out (extirpated) in BC. From 1969 to 1972, ~89 were translocated to NW Vancouver Island as a mitigation measure for nuclear testing in Alaska. Now, there are 8,100+ (Nichol et al. 2020). Even with incredibly dense fur – which made them so desirable in the fur trade – they need to eat up to 25% of their body mass per day to be warm in this cold ocean. Diet includes urchins which eat kelp. So, with more Sea Otters there is more kelp (with the many benefits). This may be a female. Males often bite females’ noses during mating. Geoducks are the world’s largest burrowing clam and can live for 140+ years.
July 2026 image and text
Red Irish Lord: This fish’s face says a lot about how I have felt about “developments” in the world. You too? Red Irish Lords are powerful ambassadors for the vivid colour in these cold waters (Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus to 51 cm). They are variations/combinations of red, orange, yellow, pink, purple, and white. How could such a colourful fish be camouflaged? Because the life around them has this intensity and diversity of colour. Even their eyes are camouflaged. This Red Irish Lord is on top of Red Soft Coral and Bushy Pink-mouth Hydroids – motionless, waiting for prey to come near. See my blog “Crabs Making Bad Choices” for what happens.
August 2026 image and text
Life in sand: Tube-dwelling Anemone (Pachycerianthus fimbriatus crown to 30 cm wide) and Northern Moonsnail (Neverita lewisii shell to 14 cm across). These anemones retract into their long tube in the sand (up to 1 m long) when pounced on by their predator, the Giant Nudibranch. Moonsnails need a big foot to dig for clams, which they drill into with their radula. The foot of a Northern Moonsnail can inflate with seawater to be 4 times the size of what it is when in the shell. They also rely on sand for their egg masses. Females embed 1000s of eggs between 2 layers of sand bound with mucus. Then, they push the collar-shaped egg mass above the sand.
September 2026 image and text
Humpback Inukshuk (BCZ0339): Nickname is for the marking on the centre of his fluke that looks like a pile of rocks. He is known to migrate to the breeding grounds of Mexico and return (skinny) to the feeding grounds of NE Vancouver Island every year since 2008. Sometimes still here in November. Some Humpbacks leave even later. They have staggered migrations – leaving and returning at different times whereby there can be Humpbacks in BC at any time of year. Inukshuk often rests at the surface during the day and can be so difficult to detect. There is great concern about vessel strike. For whale and boater safety, please see http://www.WhaleSafeBoating.org.
October 2026 image and text
Veiled octopus: I now carry this experience with me. I want you to carry it too – knowing about this Giant Pacific Octopus and feeling at least some of what I felt. I had my head down, slowly moving along in awe of a little species of sea cucumber that was spawning. I looked up from my focus on the small, and there, looking in my direction, was this Giant Pacific Octopus. I backed off. The octopus backed up, into the filamentous brown algae. And then, for some 5 minutes, we looked at one another. The octopus veiled in the algae. Me, wrapped in wonder. One of us a brief, and light-flashing visitor. The other, royalty among the invertebrates.
November 2026 image and text
Stalked jelly – species of Haliclystus: Size is about 3 cm and this individual was at 1 m depth. No species name has been assigned. That would follow the publication of research showing it is morphologically and genetically distinct. Stalked jellies never become free-swimming, bell-shaped medusa. They attach by their sticky stalk (this one is anchored to Eelgrass) and have 8 arms with pom-pom-like clusters of tentacles at the ends. These tentacles have stinging cells to catch small crustaceans which are then moved to the mouth at the centre of the 8 arms. If detached, stalked jellies can grip a surface with their tentacles and quickly reattach by their stalk.
December 2026 image and text
Shut the door: The species in the centre is a Red-trumpet Calcareous Tubeworm with its crown (radioles) of high surface area to snare plankton. The colourful, trumpet-like structure on the animal’s lower right is their operculum. It functions like a door, pulling closed after the tubeworm retracts, giving further protection to the worm in its hard, shell-like tube of a home. Serpula columbiana to 6.5 cm long. The other species near the worm are tunicates – our closest invertebrate relatives. In their larval stage, tunicates have a backbone-like structure (notochord). Here, the Broadbase Tunicate is red, and the Mushroom Compound Tunicates are white.
Voting time! Do you want to help decide which photos will be in my 2025 WILD calendar?
The calendar is aimed at creating awareness and positive action for the mysterious and fragile life hidden in the cold, dark, northeast Pacific Ocean.
There are a LOT of images to choose from – 43 total! These are images I have posted on social media and people have asked to have them included in the selection for the calendar. ☺️ You can select up to 13 of your favourites by June 10.
You can vote in one of two ways. Please see below.
I enjoy, and learn, a great deal from your input. It likely won’t surprise you that my motivation to share this selection of my photos with you is also to highlight the astounding life off our coast. 💙
Your votes will count heavily in determining which images will be included in the calendar. Please know that I will also have to reflect on the diversity represented in the calendar so that there is balanced colour and species representation e.g. the images in the calendar can’t all be marine mammals, kelp, fish or nudibranchs!
Feel free to indicate too if there is a photo you would like to see on the front cover or back cover. Please note that the back cover image will ONLY be on the back cover.
Enjoy!
Two ways you can vote:
Via the surveyat this link . You don’t need to submit any personal information or have an account.
With a song in my heart, I can announce, the 2025 WILD Calendar is now available. Such great thanks to all who helped by voting on the selection of photos. They can be ordered at this link.
My WILD Calendar is aimed at creating awareness about the diversity and fragility of life hidden in the cold, dark, life-sustaining northeast Pacific Ocean. It is the waters dark with plankton that have more life, produce more oxygen, and buffer more carbon dioxide.
It’s the 16th year I have made a WILD Calendar. I am so grateful to all who put these calendars into the world. You are helping increase connection and understanding of our reliance on the Ocean. That’s needed to make the decisions, day-by-day, that consider future generations. 💙
Each month’s photo has a detailed descriptor included about the featured marinelife. The calendars are $27.50 + tax.
They are large and printed on sturdy paper on Vancouver Island, coil bound with a hole to hang them. 33 x 26.5 cm closed and 33 x 53 cm open (13 x 10.5″ closed /13 x 21″ open).
There are BIG spaces to write your daily adventures.
A rose by any other name: Rose Anemones are also known as Fish-eating Anemones. Indeed, this BIG anemone species is unique in that its diet includes shrimp and small sh. An exception is the Painted Greenling. This sh has a “Nemo-like” relationship with Rose Anemones, appearing to be immune to the sting of the tentacles. Anemones can move around by sliding on their base (pedal disc). They may also completely detach. When small Rose Anemones are attacked by a Leather Star, they can release and drift away as a defense to this predator. Urticina piscivora to 30 cm tall and 30 cm wide. Fish in the background are Black Rocksh.
February 2025 image and text
The embrace: Bull Kelp intertwined in water thick with plankton. Love the ocean and the algae. They sustain life above and below the surface. From the microscopic to giant kelps, algae photosynthesize – absorbing climate-changing carbon dioxide and producing food and oxygen. At least 50% of the oxygen on Earth comes from marine algae and there is more productivity where the water is cold and there is high current. Kelp forests are also essential habitat to so many species. Kelp is impacted by changes in climate and the plight of Sunower Stars (which feed on Green Urchins which graze on kelp). Bull Kelp is Nereocystis luetkeana to 36 m long.
March 2025 image and text
Whales saving humans: Humpback Whale Jigger (BCX1188) lunge-feeds, engulfing juvenile Pacific Herring. Not only will this richness sustain her, she will also transport nutrients to benefit the ecosystem. Whales defecate at the surface. This fertilizes the plant-like plankton = more food, oxygen, and carbon capture. When she burns up her fat and urinates in the warm water breeding grounds, the nutrients from BC will benefit life there. It is estimated that the carbon captured in the life of 1 large whale (including what is stored in their body) is the equivalent of 30,000 trees. See http://www.mersociety.org for our work with the BBC about the importance of whales.
April 2025 image and text
You feed your way: This Giant Acorn Barnacle’s foot is fully extended, raking in plankton (world’s largest barnacle species at up to 15 cm wide). The white animals are Mushroom Compound Tunicates, each member of the colony with a siphon to bring in water with plankton snacks. The dark purple animals are Raspberry Hydroids, the tentacles of the polyps stunning and snagging planktonic prey. The many bead-like structures (gonophores) are their reproductive organs. The Raspberry Hydroid on the far right is being chewed on by a Pomegranate Aeolid (nudibranch species to 2.5 cm long). This is the only known prey of this species of nudibranch.
May 2025 image and text
Pulsing with life: Lion’s Mane Jelly reflected against the surface. Cyanea capillata can be over 2 m across with 8 clusters of 70 to 150 tentacles which can be more than 9 m long. One is reported to have been 2.3 m across with 36.6 m long tentacles (was in the North Atlantic and may be classfied as a different species, McClain et al., 2015). The jelly in this photo was ~50 cm wide and tentacles were retracted. Jellies know which way is up. Small organs (“rhopalia”) sense gravity and light. Lion’s Mane Jellies have 1 between each of the 8 lobes of their bell. This species is among the very few in BC waters that have a sting that can cause human discomfort.
June 2025 image and text
Infinite wonder: 1. Sea star is a Leather Star (Dermasterias imbricata to 30 cm across). You can see some tube feet, their gills, and the “madreporite” – circular structure that is the opening to the water vascular system. Water enters to allow locomotion, respiration, and feeding. 2. Nudibranch is a Cockerell’s Dorid (Limacia cockerelli to 3 cm long). See the high surface area of the two “rhinophores” to detect chemicals/smell. 3. Species of encrusting coralline algae. Has a hard layer of calcium carbonate. They photosynthesize, making food and oxygen, and taking in carbon dioxide. 4. Snail is a Variegated Amphissa (Amphissa versicolor to 1.9 cm long).
July 2025 image and text
Bountiful biodiversity: This is just below the surface in so many areas off our coast. This is what we are connected to in many of our daily decisions . . . a dark ocean sustaining life in an intricate web, from anemones to nudibranchs, from plankton to people. The species here include: White-spotted Rose Anemone (to 25 cm tall / 15 cm wide); Monterey Dorid (nudibranch species to 15 cm long); Whitecap Limpet (to 5 cm across) with a Crenate Barnacle on its shell (to 2 cm); juvenile Bering Hermit Crab (to 2.5 cm) in a shell once made and inhabited by a Threaded Snail (to 2 cm); and species of crustose coralline algae (pink).
August 2025 image and text
Another living gem: Longfin Sculpins are powerful ambassadors for the colour in these cold waters. Just look at the patterns, the texture, and the gossamer fins. They crawl with their pectoral fins and can hold on vertically, head oriented downward, like Spider-Man. They rarely swim more than 0.5 m off the bottom and are most often solitary (except when mating and egg guarding). They are reported to be very territorial of areas that are 0.3 to 0.5 metres squared (source: Love, 2011). They darken at night to match their surroundings = “nocturnal protective colouration”. The males are also darker when courting females. Jordania zonope to 15 cm long.
September 2025 image and text
Symbionts: Ochre Stars and Giant Green Anemones in the shallows. This anemone species is vibrant green when the symbiotic algae living in their guts receive a lot of sunshine. More sun = more food through photosynthesis. The anemones benefit from the nutrients made by the algae. The algae benefit by being where their predators can’t get them (grazers like limpets, chitons, and snails). This anemone species is Anthopleura xanthogrammica to 30 cm high / 30 cm wide. The symbiotic algae are zoochlorellae (green algae) and zooxanthellae (dinoflagellates). There is also a green pigment in the skin of the anemones.
October 2025 image and text
Eight-armed teacher: For a little levity, here are some lessons I’ve learned from Giant Pacific Octopuses. (1) Do not fear what looks different. (2) Respect alternative intelligences. (3) Blend in to escape detection when necessary. (4) Trust your ability to squeeze through tight spaces and come out the other side. (5) Ink out the negative and jet away, leaving it behind you. (6) Know where your home is and keep the garbage outside. (7) Be big-hearted (octopuses have 3 hearts) and guard the next generation. (8) Use your beak when needed. Enteroctopus dofleini to 7.3+ metres from arm tip to arm tip. Of course there’s an octopus photo for October!
November 2025 image and text
Pretty little predators: These Red-gilled Nudibranchs are feeding on Bushy Pink-mouth Hydroids – colonies of animals with stinging cells (nematocysts). The white coils are the nudibranchs’ egg ribbons. The bushy structures on the backs of the nudibranchs are the cerata. These function as gills and also have a role in defence. The stinging calls from their prey end up at the tips of the nudibranchs’ cerata. Yes, they “steal” the weapons of their prey and lay their eggs on top of them. Bushy Pink-mouth Hydroids are Pinauay crocea to 15 cm tall. The flabellina nudibranchs have undergone much reclassification. I believe these are Coryphella verrucosa to 10 cm long.
December 2025 image and text
No two alike: Rose Stars are also known as Snowflake Stars because there is so much diversity in pattern and colour. Even the number of arms varies, ranging from 8 to 16 (most often 11). They are fast at 50 cm/minute (source: McDaniel, 2018). You can see 3 structures on the surface of the sea star: (1) spines; (2) pedicellaria = structures that can nip off the tube feet of other species of sea star e.g. the predatory Morning Sun Star; and (3) papulae = the tufts that are the gills / respiratory organs. Crossaster papposus to 34 cm but in BC maximum size is believed to be ~17 cm. One species. So many colours. That’s beauty. That’s biology.
The Marine Detective 