plant/animal reference) to get a bigger pictureTeam at work-Rosario | Rosario Beach team photo 2009 | Quadrat work |
Fucus sp. | Checkered periwinkle | Idotea wosnesenskii |
It was a dauntless, nose to the grindstone group who descended on Deception Pass State Park’s Rosario Beach on May 26th. Sammye Kempbell organized the 8 monitors into two teams who set to work documenting 17 quadrats full of the rich floral and faunal species that span the length of Rosario’s rocky intertidal area. The crew worked under light rain most of the morning but as they finished up the last couple of quadrats the sky brightened and the rain ceased. Thankfully no one took a tumble on the slippery-when-wet bedrock.
Because this beach has been heavily trampled in recent years, the park implemented a restoration project last summer with trails installed for visitors. Park Interpretive Specialist Adam Lorio joined the monitoring teams hoping to learn how species density may be changing in response to the restoration project. The Beach Watcher naturalists who have helped out on this beach for several years believe the
rockweed (Fucus sp.) appears to be more plentiful this year as compared to last year. The monitoring teams tallied hundreds of periwinkles (Littorina sp.), Lisa Harkins found tiny striped Haliplanella anemones tucked in a crevice, and Melody Kuschnereit made the observation that the green rockweed isopods (Idotea wosnesenskii) resembled dill pickles!