Rockweed isopod | 
Team photo | 
Black clawed crab |
Sea lettuce | 
Haliclystus2 | 
Pisaster ochraceus |
Team captain Charlie Seablom led a crew of three on the mile long trek to Footprint Rock on July 5th. This is a rocky beach on the west side of Whidbey Island. Charlie reports that the weather was fine for monitoring and everything went great. In fact, this was the first beach Murray Aston had monitored when it wasn't raining! When they finally arrived at the monitoring site, they found hundreds of 
rockweed isopods (Idotea wosnesenskii) among the algae and Libby Hayward spotted a stalked jelly (Haliclystus sp.) clinging to seaweed in a small tidepool. A black clawed crab (Lophopanopeus bellus) was also seen. Charlie reports that they found nothing but sand in the quadrats at the 0 and -1 foot levels and only a little sea lettuce (Ulva) and one Lacuna snail in those at +1 foot. As the team hiked back, they took time to explore among the large boulders along the way and found several large purple sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus) and multiple large colonies of feather duster worms (Eudistylia vancouveri).
plant/animal reference) to get a bigger picture