Oyster Blog — Tideflat Critters

Deep, deep down, the Canal is a creepy place. Check out these tentacles! This octopus carcass washed up in our tumble farm a week ago... it was only half intact and had been chewed on by crabs and other critters. Giant Pacific Octopi usually live about 60 feet deep, so we never see them on our farm, or at least never alive. They're probably the largest octopus species on the planet. The females are terminal spawners, a fancy way of saying they die after they reproduce. (Read the Seattle Aquarium blog for more info... on Valentine's Day they released their...

Looking closely:

The other day we ran across a cast of hermit crabs living in periwinkle shells. (According to this page, "cast" is the correct term for a gathering of crabs. Now we know.) This appeared to be a pretty big cast, located relatively high on the beach, in sloughs, underneath oyster shells. It seemed pretty exclusive, too, because we didn't notice any hermits carrying around Asian mud snail shells, which are similarly sized. Just periwinkle shells. Periwinkles are very common on our beach (and everywhere else). They mainly eat algae and lichens, using their radula to scrape their food free of...

Here are some photos from a nighttime beach walk we took a couple of weeks ago. Ever wonder what diving ducks do underwater? In the photo below you can see a duck excavation, created by foraging a surf scoter, white wing, or other clam-eating duck. In the winter the tideflats are covered with these pits, and the hungry ducks are one reason we always put nets over areas of the beach where we've spread clam seed. We also found a spotted dorid hanging out. The most common nudibranch on our beach is the yellow monterey dorid, so finding this spotted guy was a treat. One...