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From lumpfish to limpets, tide-pool walks explore an amazing world of curious creatures
By GREG JOHNSTON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
A cast of colorful and cartoonlike creatures lives along the shores of Puget Sound, but many do public performances only about a dozen times a year, when minus tides reach seasonal lows.
On these occasions -- always at night in winter -- spiny lumpsuckers flutter about tide pools like discombobulated pingpong balls with tiny fins; eel-like gunnels exposed in their homes under rocks flip and dance like bacon on a too-hot griddle; red rock crabs scuttle sideways through the eel grass.
Poking about the shore on a minus tide, the curious will find an amazing variety of creatures that includes limpets and nudibranchs, anemones and sea stars, squids, sea slugs and sculpins, chitons and blennies.
"I really enjoy being around the animals and picking them up and stuff,'' said Anna Kalagian of Seattle, at 11 a veteran tide-pool poker. "I was really surprised by that really big lemon nudibranch. That was the biggest one I've seen."
Anna, her 8-year-old brother, Ethan, and her mom, Sarah Kalagian, recently joined a Seattle parks group for a nighttime tide-pool stroll at Mee Kwa Mooks Park, on the beach south of Alki Point.
Led by popular marine biologist and Camp Long park director Lynn Catlin, this tide-pool exploration fell on the winter solstice, which happened to occur during a full moon. Unfortunately fog obscured the moon, but the group's flashlights amply illuminated dozens of marine creatures.
"I just love to go tide-pooling and it's fun to take other people and show them that stuff," said Catlin, who also teaches a marine invertebrates zoology course at the University of Washington. "It's one of my interests and hobbies. I grew up in Wisconsin, so it seems so exotic."
The night's program -- "Solstice Tide-Pool Party" -- began at Camp Long's rustic wooden lodge. Now a park in West Seattle, Camp Long was created by Judge William G. Long in the 1930s as a retreat for wayward youth.
Before a roaring fire, Catlin presented a slide show on some of the species that participants might see and fielded questions from a particularly knowledgeable group. After cookies and hot chocolate, the group carpooled to nearby Mee Kwa Mooks, which is Duwamish for "face of a bear," the shape defined by the Puget Sound shoreline of West Seattle.
At the park, rubber boots and warm clothing were pulled on, flashlights checked and the troupe traipsed over beach boulders to the edge of the water, which dropped to minus 3.2 feet (second-lowest tide of the year) at 10:34 p.m.
It soon became amazingly apparent that Puget Sound hosts a rich diversity of marine life -- and just offshore from the biggest metropolis north of San Francisco.
"There's always new things to discover, and in the dark it's a much different world," said Ellis Johnson, 12, who took in the program with his father Brandon. "You see a lot of stuff you never see in the daytime."
The first piscatorial puzzler was a spiny lumpsucker, which many of us were convinced was some sort of puffer fish. Even Catlin, who had never seen one at Mee Kwa Mooks, could not identify it. A check of a field guide later revealed its identity.
Others were easy to identify: sea slugs and cucumbers, dozens of purple and orange sea stars -- which, Catlin explained, travel high up on shore to feed during winter -- and a large, spongelike lemon nudibranch that smelled faintly like air freshener.
Sarah Kalagian, who home-schools Ethan and Anna, said programs like those conducted by Camp Long naturalists provide children with hands-on environmental education.
"There's nothing in a book that can convey the enthusiasm that going out with somebody who is so knowledgeable will," Kalagian said.
Enthusiasm should be Catlin's middle name. She and fellow Seattle parks naturalists Jeanie Murphy-Ouellette and Cinny Burrell fairly squealed with delight upon finding some strange critter, calling each other over to experience and identify it.
"She has so much enthusiasm, and it's highly contagious," Kalagian said of Catlin. "Sometimes nature-type programs can be canned. Lynn is very open to whatever you discover in the moment. I think that's cool, that openness to discovery and wherever it can lead you."
Other participants agreed.
"It was relaxed, informative and it wasn't stilted at all," said Brandon Johnson, Ellis' father. "There was a lot of room for questions and good answers.... There were times I was certain I knew something and she had (different) answers.
"I'm still convinced (the lumpsucker) was a blowfish."
During the slide program, Catlin advised all about beach etiquette and the need to conserve the beach's natural resources. It is important not to harm any creature, and to put it back in the same spot it came from.
"If you move them several feet away, there may not be a good food source for them," she said. "We try to discourage people from collecting live creatures."
She asked that any overturned rocks be righted, since they are homes for many creatures, and any fish removed from the water be put back promptly.
On the solstice trip, fog was thick but the temperature was mild and the wind non-existent.
"Sometimes during the nighttime minus-tide walks we've been on, it's been howling wind and rain and subfreezing temperatures," Kalagian said.
It's wise to dress appropriately and to wear at least knee-high rubber boots, since it is muddy and wet out there. Care should be exercised when walking among slippery rocks or wading in tide pools; a dunking during winter can be serious.
Care should also be used when walking the beach at a minus tide so you don't step on and squish any small creatures.
Camp Long conducts a variety of nature programs year-round, from star-watching to owl-hooting to making syrup from the park's native big leaf maples. The next tide-pool stroll is Jan. 20, which coincides with a full eclipse of the moon. It begins at Camp Long at 8 p.m.
Even if clouds or fog obscures the eclipse, you'll find plenty of fun and entertaining characters on the beach.
A gallery of tide-flat critters
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| (Clockwise from upper left) a red rock crab, a sea cucumber, a Pacific lumpsucker, a gumboot chiton, a red anemone and a slender-arm sea star. | |||
About Mee Kwa MooksWhat: A 68-acre park with forests, meadows, trails, a climbing rock, nature center, lodge and 10 rustic cabins that may be rented by the public for overnight use. . . . Originally built in the 1930s with salvaged materials by Superior Court Judge William G. Long, as a retreat for wayward youth. . . . Now operated by the Seattle Parks and Recreation department. . . . Provides habitat for red fox, coyotes, flying squirrels, woodpeckers, owls, hawks, beavers and other animals. . . . Considered one of the best-kept secrets of the Seattle park system.Where: In West Seattle at 5200 35th Ave. S.W. Programs: Call the park for a free brochure on its year-round classes and field trips, such as tide pool walks at nearby beaches, nighttime star-watching and owl-hooting, hay rides, bird-watching, strolls with naturalists and "Tots Walks." Park naturalists also lead "Wild Washington" field trips: skiing and snowshoeing in the mountains and birding along the Skagit Flats and Skagit River. Hours: Tuesdays through Sundays, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Sundays in January and closed Mondays year-round. Phone: 206-684-7434 Web site: www.ci.seattle.wa.us/parks/Environment/camplong.htm
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