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NEWS FOR BAINBRIDGE
BEACH NATURALISTS August, 2011 | |
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Our explorations this summer have turned up an amazing array of sea life on a wide variety of beaches here on Bainbridge Island. Each beach is different from the others in such things as substrate, currents, and what we can find on the beach. Fort Ward has an amazing hard clay substrate, which is loaded with piddock clams, many of them totally hidden by rocks which sheltered them as tiny clams coming to shore to settle, and they are now forever captive in their holes under the rocks. It was at Fort Ward beach that we also found the plain-fin midshipmen nurturing their eggs. In this species, the male creates a nest under a rock, woos the female with a humming sound, and after the eggs are laid and fertilized, the female returns to the deep water, leaving the male to tend to the nest until the babies are hatched.
The beautiful sea slugs, called nudibranchs, have been a hit with the beach explorers and naturalists. We've identified sea lemons, barnacle-eating dorids, leopard dorids, opalescent nudibranchs, and both a golden and a white-lined dirona.
 We have found an array of sea stars on our beaches, including mottled stars, ochre stars, giant pink stars, leather stars, brittle stars, six-rayed stars, blood stars and sunflower stars. Not all are found on a single beach, but Point White Pier beach has a great variety.
We will be holding three late fall/winter beach explorations, which occur during the night, as that's when the low tides happen. It's a different world to explore with a headlamp or flashlight. It is also quite cold out in the water, so our explorations are for a shorter time period. We'll be sending a newsletter about the fall/winter explorations later this year.
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LAST SUMMER BEACH EXPLORATION THIS YEAR!
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There's one more window of opportunity for a good beach exploration at a reasonably low tide. We  have scheduled a beach exploration for Saturday, August 27, 9 am to 11 am at Rockaway Beach Park. This is a lovely, small public beach, with a rocky outcropping that shelters many wonderful sea critters, many in tidepools.
Parking is very limited here, so carpooling is recommended. Please angle park at Rockaway. It is also possible to park at Blakely Harbor Park and walk east to Rockaway.
The access to the beach involves some scrambling over rocks; a hiking stick is a good idea, as the rocks can be very slippery.
Come join us for our last beach exploration of the summer.
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BEACH MONITORING
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 A very interesting monitoring exercise was completed in July at a beach near Battle Point Park. Bainbridge Island Land Trust invited the Bainbridge Beach Naturalists to conduct a beach assessment of a shoreline property on which they are acquiring a conservation easement. Working with Jeff Adams, we utilized the model developed by Island County/WSU Beach Watchers. The substrate and observable invertebrates were described for each ten foot square section of the beach along the profile line of the beach. At minus one foot, zero, and plus one foot, quadrats were set and the contents counted to assess the species density.
This beach will be monitored annually to be able to determine changes over time.
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Contact us with any ideas or questions at 206-780-0982 (Gerlind) or 206-842-5133 (Maradel).
Making the most of the remaining low tides!
Sincerely,
Bainbridge Beach Naturalists
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BainbridgeBeach@gmail.com
  
Thanks to Sustainable Bainbridge for use of this email distribution program
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