This prickleback has a distinctive crest.
Overcast and rain for much of the day. Temperatures near 40. Despite temperatures above freezing, there was a snow shower around midday.
I held off heading out until later this afternoon.
Around 4pm I walked down to the beach for low tide. The predicted was a -1.8ft around 6pm, but actual levels were 0.5ft or more below predicted.
I checked barnacles on Sage Beach and was able to find dark ball-like growths. It occurs to me they may be growing on other things besides barnacles, but their contrast with barnacles certainly makes them easier to see.
I’m leaning more more strongly towards them being a green algae rather than part of a lichen.
I moseyed down the shoreline. Periodically I would pick something up to take a closer look.
In one clam shell half filled with sand, I found a juvenile red rock crab hiding out.
I eventually stopped and started turning over rocks. It was still light enough that I didn’t the light I had brought at first. That didn’t last long, though.
I didn’t find too many different things that caught my eye enough to take pictures.
After I put them in a container for better photos, these two polychaete worms became tangled up for a time. One is a deeper pink, the other more of a paler peach color
I did put a couple different polychaete worms in a container to take pictures. I would not be surprised if they are the same species, but they were different colors and behaved in a somewhat different way.
The deeper pink polychaete tended to coil up like this and occasionally thrash around. I never saw the paler one thrash or coil up
I moved once to a new spot where I saw a couple of pricklebacks. One of them stuck around long enough for me to get pictures. I was also interested to see that I found several flattop crabs at the second spot, but none at the first. They were not very far apart. Perhaps the latter spot was just lower enough on the beach to get into the zone where they live.
At the second place I stopped to turn over rocks I found flattop crabs, but I had not see them at the first place (which was not very far away)
With a heavy mist falling, cold hands, and daylight basically gone, I decided to call it good shortly before the actual lowest point of the tide cycle.
I tried whistling for screech owls near forested areas on my way back. I hoped one might respond, but I didn’t hear any.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
