plant/animal reference) to get a bigger pictureMaxwelton Tidepool team along profile line | Team photo Maxwelton Tidepools 2009 | Maxwelton Tidepool team looks under chunk of peat |
Sand lance | Pycnapodia |
Maxwelton Tidepools beach was not monitored last year but Linda and Mac LaMay stepped up to serve as team captains there this year and did a terrific job in their new role. The weather cooperated with beautiful sunny skies and the tide fell to the -3.8 feet mark resulting in a profile line that stretched out over 800 feet. The team of seven encountered a massive chunk of peat and pried one side of it up to discover the mother lode of hermit crabs hiding beneath it along with several colorful gunnel eels. They also found a
sunflower star (Pycnapodia helianthoides), a pygmy rock crab (Cancer oregonensis), and hundreds of sand lances (Ammodytes hexapterus) that had emerged from their hiding places in the sand only to be faced with a dry beach and hordes of very hungry (and also very lucky) sea gulls. One additional highlight was the preformance of some spectacular aerobatics during a flyover by two juvenile bald eagles.