The warm sunny days have set in, giving us a whiff of summer during mid spring. Today was especially nice, so down to the beach we headed for some fun!
It was low tide when we got down there, and the beach has lots of rocks. Perfect for beachcombing!
As all good beachcombers, we made sure to leave all rocks back where they were found and left behind nothing but foot prints. Any living creatures we found, after observing them for short periods, we released back where they came from.
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| Paul showing Ember some marine worms in the sand |
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| Exploring the rockpools |
We found a number of marine shrimp species, even a few large females with eggs!
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| Little marine shrimp |
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| Female shrimp with eggs hiding in the rocks |
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| Cool looking seaweed/sponge |
We found a few cool and unexpected bits and blobs!
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| An unidentifiable sea blob! Appears to be alive... |
Crabs are always fun to find...
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| Little crab |
Unfortunately the crab numbers at this beach are rather low, probably from people letting kids cart them off to keep as "pets". We did find a few but no where near as many as you'd expect or that I remember from adventures I went on as a kid at the same beach. It used to be that you could turn over any rock and find one or two under each rock!
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| Furry crab! |
Baby fish!
Lots of little fish get trapped in the shallow pools of water when the tide goes out. We found a lot of juvenile Flathead [or 'Froggies'] and managed to catch a few for a closer look before releasing them again.
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| Now you see him! |
They have a unique way of hiding, by burrowing under the sand so only their eyes are visible! See if you can spot him in the below photo.
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| Now you don't! |
Our favourite discovery was a couple of Snapping Shrimp.
I was in one particular rock pool and I heard a snap, which I thought sounded suspiciously like a Snapping Shrimp. Sure enough, after carefully moving a few rocks I found some!
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| A close up of the Snapping Shrimp |
These guys are pretty cool critters! They have one oversized claw, which as they snap creates air bubbles which reaches speeds of up to 97km/h! It's strong enough to knock out and sometimes kill small fish. The pressure wave from the snap is so loud it registers up to 218 decibels. This makes them one of the loudest animals in the ocean. Pretty impressive for a shrimp only about 4-5cm long!
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| Snapping shrimp. See how large it's snapping claw is? |
They also feature on Ember's favourite TV show, the Octonauts, so she was thrilled to meet a creature from the show!
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| Ember releasing one of the Snapping Shrimp we caught |
We also managed to get a short video of one snapping it's claw. Please excuse all the background noise, Ember wanted to release him! You can hear the audible snap it makes a few times though.
Beachcombing is a fun family beach activity, but please remember don't take any living creatures home. Most places you can't lawfully take anything from the beach and besides they belong in the rock pools for everyone to enjoy!
Always carefully put rocks back where you found them, as they are the homes of shrimp, crabs and other creatures. The last thing you want to do is crush the inhabitants.
