The shore around the artificial tidal pool looked sterile. Dead, grey rocks, dead, grey stones, and dead, greyed logs. Nothing more. At least, so it seemed until I stopped to look more closely.
Where the tide had just retreated, the still wet stones were dotted with tiny snails. Around the dry stones, there were none. I sat on a handy stone and started to dig down, moving one stone at a time, cautiously. And down between the top layer of stones, where there was shade and dampness, I found snails aplenty.
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| Pair of snails on wet stone. And the stones aren't all that grey, after all. Not while they're wet. |
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| Snail on dry hand, checking to see if it's safe to travel. He decided it wasn't. |
Digging down further, to where the stones were like oddly-shaped peas, and quite wet, I started to find small crabs.
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| Escaping, ready to take a daredevil leap into space. (I put him down gently, instead.) |
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| "Smiles". A different crab, less frantic. They're green shore crabs. All of the ones I saw were in these darker tones. |
Besides the crabs and snails, one species of each, I found several small limpets who declined having their photo taken. No worms or flatworms, only one barnacle, a brave little soul colonizing new territory.
Later, skirting the pool, I noticed movement, and stooped to watch a pair of hermits, the male dragging the female around, then stopping to mate with her, briefly. And then, "Thank you, ma'am," and he dropped her and hurried away.
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| "So long!" The female is curled up inside her shell, recovering. The rainbow colours on the male's shell and body are from the sunlight on the water they're in. (About 4 inches deep.) |
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| The female, having an exciting day. They're grainy hand hermits, with blue polka dots on the pincers, and red/orange antennae and eyes. |
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| I only saw this one small clump of seaweed, probably brought in with the latest tide. |
