Rocky Intertidal

This morning we woke up and went to the Rocky Intertidal.  It wasn't just some small rocks, they were quite big and bulky!  Here is an example of what it looks like.  This picture I took last year at the same place we went to today.  I didn't realize that my batteries in my camera were getting low, and after a few shots of different sea life they were dead.  So I wasn't able to take many pictures of the things I saw today, so I am very grateful to my awesome classmates who took some for me!!!

I really enjoy going to the rocky intertidal areas.  I think I like them better than the mud flats just because they have such a diversity of animal life.  If you want to see them you really have to search.  So we started flipping over the rocks and looking for life.  We saw a lot of different brittle stars.  One that I found was actually eating!  It was really cool to see.  We learned in lecture that the sea stars and brittle stars can actually put their stomach outside of their bodies if it is to big to eat, and start digesting the food outside and once it gets smaller they bring it all back inside to finish it off.  When we found this brittle star it was already mostly inside of itself.  But it was something very interesting to see!

As we were searching for sea life Erinn and I were searching together, I turned over a rock and I found a baby Sun Star.  I was so excited.  Last year it was my goal to find one and I never did, so this year I was really hoping to be able to see one out in the wild.  Below is the picture that Mackenzie took.  It is a Sea Star that can have 10-42 different arms.  So naturally everyone got a picture with it!  It was really cool.