(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



The Daily Bucket: Low Tide Days on Puget Sound [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-15

Spring and summer along the Puget Sound shoreline are the seasons of daytime low tides. The lowest tides occur around the new moon and full moon. These super low tides expose an abundance of sea life not ordinarily seen except at low tide. I went out to the shoreline near my home on June 18th (moderate low tide) and July 5th (super low tide at about minus 3.9 feet). The shoreline is on the east side of Puget Sound just north of Edmonds at a location ironically called Browns Bay. Let’s take a deep dive and look at some features and creatures I observed (“deep dive” is a pun for you kids in the back).

THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.

Just a quick few links in case you want to geek out more on tides and intertidal ecosystems.

Let’s move on to the fun part … creatures and things.

Here’s a couple views of “the Rock.” At super low tide, I go first to the Rock. The Rock and the smaller rocks around it are great places to find intertidal lifeforms. The rocks offer great protection and hiding places. The Rock itself is a glacial erratic transported by and left here from the receding ice sheet about 13,000 years ago. I touched on our local glacial geology on my last Bucket: Ice Age Revealed at Barnum Point.

Now, the Rock.

The Rock at low tide but not low enough to walk around it without getting your feet wet (June 18, 2023)

The Rock at super low tide, totally exposed. Now we can see the creatures that live under it. (July 5, 2023). At high tide, the rock is almost completely submerged.

Lower left: Orange Sea Cucumber (Cucumaria miniata)

Left: Ochre Sea Star (Pisaster ochraceus)

Right: Several sea anemones, the one at right is Painted Anemone (Urticina grebelnyi). Without the buoyancy of immersion in seawater, the anemones droop.

Mottled Star (Evasterias troschelii)

Pacific Blood Star (Henricia leviuscula)

Orange Sea Cucumber (Cucumaria miniata)

Red Rock Crab (Cancer productus)

Blackclaw Crestleg Crab (Lophopanopeus bellus)

Northern Kelp Crab (Pugettia producta)

Lined Chiton (Tonicella lineata)

Wrinkled Purple (Nucella lamellosa)

Lewis's Moon Snail, just the shell, the living snail is gone (Neverita lewisii)

Lewis's Moon Snail egg case, or “sand collar”. Looks and feels like rubber. Contains thousands of eggs.

The next two photos are eggs, probably fish eggs, but I haven’t researched deeper yet.

Fish eggs (?) among some Japanese Wireweed (Sargassum muticum), an invasive seaweed

Fish eggs (?)

Did you want to see birds? Not many along our shore this time of year, but a few gulls and herons.

Glaucous-winged Gull (Larus glaucescens)

This 53-second video shows a Great Blue Heron gulping down a gunnel, a small eel-like fish abundant in the nearshore and intertidal zone.

Bird? No, a USN Lockheed P-3 Orion that kept looping overhead, likely doing touch-and-goes at nearby Paine Field.

Well, that’s all for today. I hope to share more from the shoreline here.

What’s going on in everyone’s worlds? It’s summer, so wildflowers and insects, like butterflies and dragonflies. Birds are fledging broods, lots of juvies at the feeder starting to get their adult plumage.

Technical note: All photos and the video were shot with my phone, a Google Pixel 7 Pro, except the gull in flight, which was shot with my Nikon Z5.

Thanks for reading the Daily Bucket.

Phenology is how we take earth’s pulse.

We discuss what we see in each Bucket.

We value all observations, as we ponder life’s cycles.

Now it’s your turn.

Please comment about your own natural area, and include photos if possible. We love photos!

To have the Daily Bucket in your Activity Stream, visit Backyard Science’s profile page and click on Follow, and join to write a Bucket of your own observations.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/15/2180710/-The-Daily-Bucket-Low-Tide-Days-on-Puget-Sound

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/