Marine Organisms!

There's lots of creepy crawly buggers at Harbour View Park if you just know where to look for them. Here's a quick tour of what I saw as I headed down river towards the low tide mark.

(Above: Autotrophs! It's green, it's slimy, I'm just gonna call this stuff Algae. There was lots of this green and brown stuff doing quite well in the area of river that is submerged in both fresh and saline water at different times of the day. Compare to below.)

(Above: I'm going to call this stuff "sea weed". It's also green so I'm guessing it's another autotroph, but this more hardy stuff survives exposed to the air for part of the day. Click on the pick for a close up).

(Above: Also exposed to the atmosphere for part of the day- Limpets, Mussels, and Barnacles. They're all closed up for protection. Did anyone else notice that barnacles make a crackling sound as you move amongst them?! Not when you step on them, but as your shadow passes over them. Very trippy)

(Above: Sometimes the life you find isn't very alive. Of all the dead crabs I encountered this one was the biggest. I would have given you something to judge the scale... but my dog found the crab too interesting so we had to move on.)

(Above: Sometimes you have to infer life from what you're given. Here are some bird prints in the sand with a feather for good measure. While down at Harbour View Park I spotted: Seagulls, Crows, Canada Geese, Ducks, and a Heron)

(Above: I didn't bother posting photos of birds we all recognize, but I'll share this pic I took of a Heron as it flew by. Click on the image for a close up. I know those industrial cranes (no pun intended) look pretty unnatural in an estuary but I thought I'd include them as a segway to my last photo... below is a great example of intertidal life using the man made environment to its advantage).

Besides the above creatures I also saw a lot of sea-lice and little crabs but this trip I did not see a single sea-star or hermit crab. I'm not sure why.

Okay, on to the ECOSYSTEM as a whole!