Crowded beach

At low tide on a beach like the one at the Edgewater motel, most of the residents are in hiding.

The beach from the top of the steps, with the tide still going out.

The base is mostly flat sandstone; on top of this, rocks lie scattered, loose, as if tossed by a stone-throwing giant. From the middle intertidal zone down, sea lettuce carpets the sandstone, with sea stars for decoration; rockweed clings to most of the rocks. There's not much more to be seen, unless we're ready to get our knees wet.

Peering under a large rock, we find a large brown and beige anemone, reddish seaweed, and encrusting sponges, pink and red. And another purple star.

Rolled over, another rock exposes bryozoan colonies, and a host of tiny spiral tubeworms. The bryozoans may be Derby hats; the white circles are empty cases.

Dwarf tubeworms, Spirorbis sp. The worms themselves (about 2 to 5 mm long) are red, so the smaller, thinner tubes look pink.

Now to get our noses to the sandstone: with Laurie leaning down, camera ready, I would flip a rock or two, and then we'd snap away wildly, before everything scooted under fresh cover.

A sandy spot, with Northern kelp crab (Pugettia producta) and cling fish.

As we took a series of photos, I noticed a change in the cling fish. After the first startled thrashing about, he lay still, but he was developing new colours. In the first two photos (too blurry, because he was spinning, as they do; this one is the third we took) he was almost black. A minute and a half later, see the difference:

Click on this to see the spots; orange, green, brown. I love those yellow eyes, too!

Next rock; wet sandstone, with grungy icing. A lively, varied community, legless to multi-appendaged. 

Going left to right, top half: a bit of purple starfish, a green rockweed isopod (Idotea wosnesenskii), three whelk shells (maybe containing whelks), a green shore crab, a sea urchin gift-wrapped in sea lettuce, a grainy hand hermit crab in a black stained whelk shell, another shore crab, a snail (possibly Amphissa), and two more whelk shells, one at least used by a hermit and decorated with a limpet.

Bottom half, left to right: beside that brown stone, a tiny, smooth shell, probably holding a hermit crab. Next, a very small gunnel, five more whelk shells, at least one with an upturned grainy hand hermit. The second one is carrying two slipper snails.

All this under a small rock I could pick up with one hand!

Another view of the same scene. Everybody's shifted around, some heading for cover, some just wandering.

Next rock:

A velvety purple ribbon worm, Paranemertes peregrina. The white stripe is on his underside.

Purple ribbon worm and flatworm.

Flatworm heading for cover, watched by a pair of shore crabs.

There are areas on this beach where the animals are in the rocks, rather than under them.

These little anemones live in round holes in the sandstone. The holes were probably carved out by other animals, such as limpets or clams.

Zooming in.

And in. I've cleaned off the glittery sand grains, to show the anemones more clearly. When the tide comes in, they rise out of the holes and spread out their tentacles, covering the bottom with a green polka-dot pattern.

And one last anemone, on its own under the edge of a rock.

Starry shore

Critters, critters, and more critters. And acres of seaweeds, to boot. That's "our" beach. I've sorted out the photos from our one-hour visit; too many for one post.

I'll start with the easy ones, and even then, there are a couple of mystery beasties.

The upper intertidal zone, looking south towards Oyster Bay. Difficult walking, unless we stick to the slabs of sandstone.

Middle intertidal zone, looking north towards Stories Beach. The greenery is rockweed, sea lettuce, and a dark, stringy weed, all very slippery underfoot. The birds are Bonaparte's gulls.

The top of the subtidal zone, which we didn't reach this visit, is partly sand, part rocks, and difficult to wade in because of a steady current.

A tangle of bull kelp, tossed up by the tide.

A small piece of an unidentified seaweed.

More stars:

This one is redder than most purple/ochre sea stars.

Can you see the three starfish here? 

 There's a common purple star at the bottom, then the orange one above it, not the same species. The skin is smooth; it may be the leather star. And up at the top right, a small, fat, beige and grey one, well camouflaged. It doesn't match anything in my books.

A green, patterned star, also unidentified.

 Near the tip of the lower left arm, there is a shiny brown speckled animal. I hadn't seen it until I was examining the photos. I don't know what it is, but I suspect some sort of small nudibranch, possibly the barnacle-eating nudibranch.

A large brittle star. The central disc is about the size of a dime. Probably the long-armed brittle star. 

There were three or four together of these stars on the sand under a rock; it's hard to tell how many when they're a tangle of squirming arms. I fished this one out to a rock, to keep it from burrowing down before we got a photo. They're fast!

A poor photo of a scrunched up sunflower star. 

To get this, I had to balance on two wobbly, slippery stones separated by a deep stream of running water, and bend 'way over to look underneath another rock. But he was so vividly orange, I had to try!

Just more purple stars. Papa star, Mama star, Baby star.

And a great blue heron, fishing for gunnels at water's edge.

Tomorrow, little critters under the rocks.

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Once again, a reminder: Rock Flipping Day is Sunday, September 9th. Instructions, history, etc.

Stars, for starters

"Our" beach, the beach just below the Edgewater motel, on the south end of Campbell River, is the main reason we return to the area every chance we get. It's flat, but stony, seaweedy, slippery, treacherous. No place for swimming or wading, except with extreme caution. But every inch of it is alive.

Because of Laurie's injury, this beach was almost off-limits for us this trip. There's a long staircase down the cliff face; 113 steps, then a scramble across the upper edge of the beach before the walking gets easy. We dared it only once, stayed for a short hour, and climbed back up, stopping for a long rest half-way.

Up top, Laurie went directly to bed; it was too much for his ripped leg, which was bleeding again. We didn't risk a second trip.

And still, in that cautious hour on the beach, we turned up an astounding number of animals. I've just about finished sorting my photos from that morning and there are two dozen worth posting, still needing resizing, etc. And I've still got Laurie's collection to review and mix in.

For now, I've resized only this one; I'll start posting the rest tomorrow.

Starfish pile-up

These are Pisaster ochraceus, which translates as "ochre starfish". In English, they are called either ochre starfish or purple starfish. Orange or purple, they're the same species.

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Reminder: Rock Flipping Day is Sunday, September 9th. Instructions, history, etc.