Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Mid and High Intertidal Explorations

The largest crowds of people can be found on local Seattle area beaches during the best Summer low tides, which occur during the full and new moon phases in the daytime; weekends a especially busy.  But one does not need an exceptionally low tide to find lots of critters at the beach.  The mid and high tide elevations on many beaches in the area are rich in marine species.....and if you want the beach all to yourself this is a good time to explore.  Close-up views of the small Oregon Pillbug and Rockweed Isopods reveals an amazing variety of color and patterns...true jewels of the high and mid intertidal zone.  Bring your magnifying lens or a good macro lens for your camera to see the true beauty of the very small.
The images below were taken in the mid and high tide zones on Alki beach....Constellation Marine Reserve in West Seattle.

Aggregate Anemone

Hairy Shore Crab 

Sitka Shrimp with Eggs

Scale Worm

Aggregate Anemone tentacles

Checkered Periwinkles

Grainyhand Hermit Crab

Green Sea Urchin

Hairy Hermit Crab on Shaggy Mouse Sea Slug eggs

Hairy Hermit Crab in Checkered Periwinkle shell

Spines of Mottled Sea Star

Oregon Pillbugs

Oregon Pillbugs

Bigtail (Fantail) Isopod on Shaggy Mouse eggs

Shaggy Mouse Sea Slug

Cerata of Shaggy Mouse

Hairy Shore Crab - one of many color  morphs

Hairy Shore Crab

Shore Crab eye

Hairy Shore Crab
Bryozoan

Grainyhand Hermit Crab

Rockweed Isopod with hitchhiker

Mating Rockweed Isopods

Moonglow Anemone

Moonglow Anemone

Opalescent Nudibranch

Opalescent Nudibranch

Oregon Pillbug

Oregon Pillbug

Oregon Pillbugs

Juv. Purple Sea Star

Red Rock Crab -orange

Rockweed Isopod

Rockweed Isopod

Rockweed Isopod eye

Juv. Purple Sea Star and Isopods

Juv. Sea Stars

Shaggy Mouse Nudibranch cerata

Sitka Shrimp

Wireweed floats (Sargassum)

Woody Chiton plates

Juv. Wrinkled Whelk and egg capsules

5 comments:

  1. Hi Buzz! Found your page through looking up Tidal Pools in Seattle. My husband and I just moved here and we love your blog!! We are pondering going up to Tongue Point on June 23rd (starting from Issaquah at 4am... ouch!) to see the low tide. Looks like it will be at -2.6 at 7:10am but also rainy that day. Do you think this would be a good time to visit? We'll be driving 3 hours so we want to be sure we plan right. Also... any recommendations for tidal pools that are closer? We chose Tongue Point because it just looks like the best!

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    1. Hi,
      Tongue Point does have great tidepools. My wife and I are going out June 23 also, but will be hiking in Olympics that day and camping at Tongue Point the 23rd and 24th. Low tide on 23rd is 8:18am as per NOAA tide tables. We have done the one day thing but prefer 2 or 3 days for a more relaxing trip. Seattle low tide is 11:22am on the 23rd. Constellation Marine Reserve in West Seattle just south of the Alki Lighthouse on Beach Dr SW has great intertidal life also and there will be beach naturalists from the Seattle Aquarium there to answer questions about marine life.......a good sleep in choice.
      Happy tidepooling,
      Buzz

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  2. Thanks so much for your reply! I really appreciate it. We've got the right time down-pat now. That's great to hear you're also venturing out to Tongue Point also! Maybe we'll see you there. We absolutely want to take a relaxing trip to Olympic but it might have to wait a bit. We're thinking about saving that for another low-tide occurrence and heading out to the Shi Shi Beach. We actually went to Alki a couple of weekends back and found Anemones, Sunflower Seastars and some other critters we're not too sure about. We weren't aware of the Marine Reserve. That sounds fantastic! Might do that as a back-up. Thanks again! :)

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  3. Hey Buzz - speaking of small creatures, I've seen a ton of tide pool sculpins almost one inch long. They're all green, but I wasn't sure if they'd keep that coloring their entire lives since the adult sculpins seem to be the black variety?

    We're headed out to tongue point Sunday. Hopefully there will be a few unreservable campsites still available! Hope to see you and Gretchen there!

    ~ Deborah

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  4. Interesting question: I have seen many references to Tidepool Sculpin color change but none have been in the scientific literature. O'Clair and O'Clair "Southeast Alaska's Rocky Shores" states that they only see the green form in Southeast Alaska, which would lead you to think they don't change color. Hart "Pacific Fishes of Canada" mentions nothing about color change. Our local beaches are home to other small sculpins...like Smoothhead, Scalyhead, Sharpnose..the Sharpnose has no scales same as Tidepool but the Smoothhead and Scalyhead do have scales. So close examination of the fish can at least eliminate some choices.
    Other actual research on the species suggests that they do not change color....but so far I have only found one reference addressing that.
    We will be in campsite 50 the 23rd and 24th.

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