Free High Resolution Sea Shore and Sea Life Wallpaper Photos

 

 

Volunteering

I volunteer during the summers as a Beach Naturalist. We are trained by ReSources and deployed to aid the critters and inform the curious along Whatcom County Beaches. It is a noble calling and great fun. For yourself and for our children's uncertain future, I urge you to volunteer in some way to help preserve what is left of this wonderful, wild life-giving planet we are called to protect.

 

 

 

 

Intertidal Zone

People usually encounter marine (salt water) creatures in the intertidal zone, the part of the shore that gets wet at high tide and is exposed to the air at low tide. A study of the intertidal zone is a study in survival and adaptation. The intertidal zone is divided into four subzones: the low, middle, and high tidal zones and the spray zone. Living higher in the intertidal zone means adapting to more air and sun and temperature extremes. Living lower on the intertidal zone means predators can eat you. Creatures such as barnacles survive by living as high as they can, protected from air and sun by their shells, to avoid predators such as sea stars.

 

Purple Sea Star

The Purple Star is the most common sea star or starfish found in Pacific Northwest intertidal zones. It will eat barnacles, mussels, chiton and snails, moving around the beach and opening the shells of its prey with hundreds of tiny tube feet. Once the shell of its prey is compromised the Purple Star, like other sea stars, can put its stomach into the prey's shell to eat it. Purple Stars also come in orange. They usually have five hearty arms with white bony, bumpy ridges. In the Pacific Northwest Purple Stars are often found out of the water and seem to be more resistant to the effects of air and sunshine than most sea stars. Please be gentle when attempting to lift a sea star. If it is tightly clinging to a rock it may be feeding so leave it attached. Tearing it away could cause damage, especially to the tube feet. Instead, find another sea star that can be gently lifted and remember to return it where you found it. (The first Purple Star pictured on the left was found on the beach in the eel grass at Birch Bay State Park and the second was found on the beach in the sand at Larrabee State Park, both in the low intertidal zone.)

 

Fill In Your Clam Digging Holes

Birch Bay State Park is well known as a place to dig shellfish such as butter clams, manila clams and cockles. Many long-time clam diggers question why they should fill in their holes. After all, doesn't the tide wash the beach and flatten everything out again? The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife determined after studies that leaving holes caused displaced immature shellfish to die from exposure or predation. (The sea gull to the left was photographed at Birch Bay State Park after taking a clam from an abandoned hole.) In addition, the sand and rocks coming out of the hole buries the siphons of adjacent clams as well as shore crabs and any surface dwelling creatures. If the clam siphons remain buried under cobble and sand and are deprived of fresh sea water for too long they suffocate and die. The shore crabs and snails and small fish die more quickly when buried as their need for oxygen is higher. When I volunteer at Birch Bay I uncover many dead and gasping little fish that had been hiding in eel grass and under rocks next to the hole. The Tidepool Sculpin (second photo on the left) is an example of the small fish that hide under rocks and eel grass and get buried when holes are dug on the beach.

 

Helmet Crab

Helmet crabs are covered in tiny hairs and have a carapace that is smaller and more "spiky" than other Pacific Northwest crabs relative to their size. They eat worms and algae and eel grass among other things. At Birch Bay I've found thumbnail-sized helmet crabs crawling in eel grass in tide pools and fully mature helmet crabs (such as the one on the left) with a carapace three to four inches wide. This one is old enough that barnacles are growing on the carapace. On the day this photo was taken I released several of these mature helmet crabs that had been trapped by a few careless clam diggers under mounds of rocks piled next to unfilled clam holes.

 

 

Chiton

Chitons are mollusks with eight plates ringed by a fleshy girdle. They come in a variety of colors and feed on algae with a rough tongue called a radula. Most chitons hide under rocks and move around more at night than in daylight. Chitons do not have eyes but they do have light sensitive organs called aesthetes on their plates. The first chiton photo was taken at Larrabee State Park. (Notice what appear to be small Barnacle-Eating Dorids, a type of nudibranch, sucking tiny barnacles out of their shells to the right and left of this chiton.) The Mossy Chiton (second photo on the left) is unusual in that it does not mind exposure to daylight and is therefore often spotted by beach goers. It spends its life fixed to the surface during the day and feeding on algae within twenty inches of its home at night. Three Black Katy Chitons or Leather Chitons (third photo on the left) are seen here in a line with barnacles above and a colony of aggregating sea anemones below. The black girdle covers most of the surface area of the plates giving it a leathery appearance. It is reported that coastal Native American populations included the Leather Chiton in their diet.

 

 

Sea Lemon Nudibranch

I photographed these Sea Lemons at Larrabee State Park and at Sucia Island. Sea Lemons are a species of nudibranch ("naked gill") which are also called sea slugs. Nudibranchs have few natural enemies and often employ chemical defenses. For example, the Opalescent Nudibranch (which we've seen at Larrabee State Park) eats hydroids and anemones. The Opalescent then uses the stinging cells (nematocysts) from its prey as defensive stingers on its own back. The Sea Lemon eats several kinds of encrusting sponges. The first photo is a Sea Lemon at Larrabee State Park which had recently been disturbed by a curious child. It really looks like a lemon, almost spherical in shape with its rhinophore "horns" and rear external gills retracted. The second photo, taken in a tide pool on Sucia Island, is a Sea Lemon cruising at surprisingly good speed along the bottom of the pool. It is moving from right to left using its rhinophore "horns" extended on its front end to detect chemicals in the water. The rhinophores may help it find sponges to eat in much the same way that we can sniff out freshly baked cookies. The feathery external gills on its back extract oxygen from the water. The third photograph is, I believe, a ribbon of Sea Lemon eggs. A nudibranch egg cluster can contain 2 million eggs and is usually placed on or near a food source, sponges in this case. Nudibranchs are both female and male so any nudibranch can mate with any other nudibranch of the same species.

 

 

Pacific Oyster

Pacific oysters are not native to this region. The native and much smaller Olympia oyster or Native Pacific oyster only grows to 3 inches across and has been largely decimated by pollution and overharvesting. The Pacific oyster was introduced to British Columbia and Washington State in the early 1900s. It grows faster and larger than the Olympia oyster,up to 12 inches long. Good spawning conditions for Pacific oysters seldom occur in the Pacific Northwest so cultured oyster "spat" is used to seed oyster beds. The spat are the larval stage of the Pacific oyster. They have tiny shells and swim around looking for a good place to attach and grow. These baby oysters like to attach to old oyster shells. That is why if you harvest oysters you are required to shuck the harvested oysters on the beach and leave the shells on the beach at the same location and tide level where they were found. Before harvesting oysters be sure you have a shellfish license, are following the local regulations and have checked the Marine Biotoxin Hotline at 1-800-562-5632. Paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) can be a serious concern in Puget Sound.

These oysters, photographed at Crescent Beach and on Sucia Island, seem to be feral Pacific oysters. Pacific oysters usually have curly shells and grow in clumps attached to hard surfaces. I thought the oysters shown here must be some other species but they are too large to be Olympia oysters so they must be Pacifics. Let me know if I'm wrong. Oysters are eaten by sea stars and oyster drill snails. The oysters shown here must have attached high enough on the rocks to avoid predators allowing them to grow so large.

 

 

Harbor Seal Pup

Harbor seals are the most common marine mammal in the Puget Sound. Unlike sea lions, seals do not have externally visible ears and they do not use their flippers on land. Harbor seals are curious. When paddling across Bellingham Bay one or two seals often follow close behind to investigate. This photograph of a seal pup was taken on the Chuckanut sandstone near Larrabee State Park. In our area seal pups are born in June and July and are frequently seen on log booms or rocky outcroppings where seals haul themselves out to warm in the sun to digest food and sleep. By law boats should stay at least 100 yards from the seals although this photograph was taken much closer. (We were paddling north from Larrabee State Park, rounding a corner, when we suddenly found ourselves across from the pup. This photograph was taken as we quietly paddled away from the pup.) Seal pups are often left on the beach for many hours while the mother seeks food. Federal law prohibits disturbing the resting seals in any way so if you see a lone pup be assured that leaving it alone is the right thing to do.

 

 

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