Head of a pin, with eyes

White Rock in the sunshine! Shorebirds and dogs not getting along, sand and waves in a tug-of-war, the smell of drying seaweed and the shriek of gulls! And beasties, too!

Laurie left his new Lee Valley hiking stick in Tim Horton's on Saturday, so we ended up back in White Rock, and on the beach of course, Sunday afternoon, too. Again, we came home smiling, laden with photos and "stuff"; rocks and shells and additions to the aquarium.

Among them was this tiny isopod, the Oregon pillbug, I think.

These are fairly common; I've captured a few before. This one is just a baby, barely 1 mm across, rolled up like this. They grow to about 1 centimetre, just under half an inch long.  Here it is, full-length:

I'm pretty pleased with my little cheap microscope; I would never have gotten these with my camera. And with the microscope, I could even make a video:

I can see that it's going to take more than a couple of days to cover this outing; besides the birds and the rest of the "big" things, I've got a handful of critters, including another video to make. Life's too short!