Herring Roe

Description:

Pacific Herring, which live up to nine years and can grow to more than 12 inches long, spend most of their lives in the open ocean. Small silver fish mainly found along the west coast from Alaska to Baja and the Asian coast. On variable seasons the some herring come into the San Francisco Bay in the winter. And when conditions are just right they lay their eggs on vegetation such as eelgrass. A single female can lay 20,000 eggs and maybe one in 10,000 will survive fishing and seals, otters, and birds. You can usually tell when and where by the amount of birds that congregate in "floats" of many diving ducks and many species of gulls.

Habitat:

sheltered bays and estuaries

Notes:

During these Herring runs there has been sightings of rare species to our area, especially gulls. Today I was able to see a Black Scoter, Iceland Gull and Slayter-back Gull through a spotting scope.