Freeland Town Park

Quadrat work Quadrat work

Freeland Park Team Photo 2010 Freeland Park Team Photo 2010

Chaco Chaco

Bald eagles Bald eagles

..Mopalia lignosa.. Woody chiton Mopalia lignosa Mopalia lignosa

Profiling the beach Profiling the beach

Michele Johnson brought together a team of eight Beach Watchers and one fluffy little dog named Chaco to monitor Freeland Town Park on May 18th. Team members were delighted to find two mature bald eagles perched on pilings along the pier as they arrived at the site. This beach has a quite a lot of barnacle coated cobble higher up along the profile line, then areas of hard clay and large boulders in the middle intertidal, and soft mud in the lower intertidal zone leading to an interesting mix of organisms. Among the day's finds were flatworms, woody chitons (Mopalia lignosa), barnacle eating nudibranchs (Onchidoris bilamellata), ghost shrimp, hermit crabs, and six species of clams with bivalve sampling digs bringing up many non-native purple varnish clams (Nuttallia obscurata).

..Pagurus hirsutiusculus.. Hairy hermit crab Hermit crab Hermit crab

..Nucella lamellosa.. Frilled dogwinkle Nucella lamellosa Nucella lamellosa

Mussel with drill hole Mussel with drill hole

Frilled dogwinkles (Nucella lamellosa) were abundant and several empty mussel shells had drill marks, evidence that they had become victims of that predatory snail species. It was unusual this year that no moon snails or moon snail egg cases were found. A polychaete nearly a foot long came up when a team member dug into the soft muddy substrate at the -1 foot level. The worm was identified as belonging to the family Nephtyidae and was quite an impressive critter!