Intertidal Monitoring - 2002

Ala Spit:

Monitored on July 10th. Unusual finds were a brittle star thought to be Amphiodia occidentalis, which has very long rays, even for a brittle star. The monitoring team also noted a few sprigs of Spartina sprouting near the profile line in almost exactly the same spot as last year, even though the Spartina was removed shortly after their beach monitor last year. Another surprise -- when the team measured location of the -1 tide line for this year and compared it to previous measurements, the -1 point was 100 feet beyond where it had been last year.

Brocks' Beach:

Monitored on July 9th. This is a sandy beach with eelgrass and the fascinating community of organisms that love to live in eelgrass. Found were Lottia alveus (eelgrass limpets), the little nudibranch-like critter Melanochlamys diomedea (also seen at the Langley Seawall and Cama Beach this year), and tubeworms (Mesochaetopterus taylori). The Brocks also note that last year was the first year they saw sand dollars on their beach, and this year the sand dollars they found were larger is size and more numerous. The team finally gave up trying to keep their footwear on in the soft sand of this beach and monitored barefoot!

Cama Beach, Camano Island:

Monitored on June 23rd. This beach has a rich eelgrass habitat and the team found some great organisms. The "best" critter was a bullhead-like fish that closely matched the description of the staghorn sculpin (Leptocottus armatus) in Kozloff's book. In addition, they found caprellid amphipods, also known as skeleton shrimp. These tiny, odd-looking things somewhat resemble walking sticks. Another great find was a gorgeous green eelgrass nudibranch, Phyllaplysia taylori. And finally, a very large dugeneness crab (Cancer magister) became the guest of honor at a picnic that followed the afternoon's monitoring activities!

Columbia Beach:

Monitored on July 11th. This is another beach with lots of eelgrass. Six of the nine quadrats had 100% coverage by eelgrass! Lots of tiny limpets and sea stars and "millions of tiny barnacles" were seen as well as red rock (Cancer productus), Dungeness (Cancer magister), and purple shore (Hemigrapsus nudis) crabs. This monitoring team was accompanied by a reporter from the South Whidbey Record and an article was to appear in the July 13th issue.

Cornet Bay:

Monitored on a July 11th in cool and breezy conditions. No unusual species were found this year but the team did find a few bivalves when doing their "dig". Also, the eelgrass beds were not as full and lush as usual and the team wonders if a fresh water outlet on the beach may have changed course and caused this. The team was able to do the T-3 quadrats this year on a dry substrate. In past years they have been done in standing water and team members had to make their observations quickly before the quadrat frames floated away!

Crescent Harbor:

Monitored on April 28th. The first beach to be invaded by bucket-laden Beach Watchers in the year 2002! The 4-person team didn't find any unusual critters but did have a real variety, including Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis (the green sea urchin) and Metridium senile (the plumose anemone). Beach Monitoring Co-Coordinator Jan Holmes noted that she has been seeing Metridium senile where she hasn't found it before, so thinks others should look for it on their beaches too. When covered by water, it displays fine white tentacles. As the tide goes out, it retracts into itself and looks like a round tan or dark brown blob that is elevated in the center and up to about 2 inches in diameter. Look for it on rocks, boulders, shells, floats, or, because it may attach itself to a rock underneath sand, on sandy areas of the beach. When on a boulder, Metridium may hang down like a sock with rock in the toe. This anemone likes protected areas where there's not much wave action. One last note from this team -- the Canada Goose that accompanied them through their paces last year was not present this year -- much to the dismay of all!

Coupeville Town Park:

A veteran team turned out June 15th to check out this beach. They found some great species of worms-flatworms, ribbon worms, and polychaetes. They also took a close look at lichens growing on a large erratic along the profile line.

Double Bluff:

Monitored on June 12th and June 13th. Double Bluff is actually composed of two beaches, Cirque Point and Wahl Farm. Cirque Point was monitored June 12. One change noted was that animal life on the huge erratic there was sparse this year. The team usually finds lots of anemones, barnacles and limpets on the erratic but this year their numbers seemed scant. The Wahl Farm site was monitored the following day and was teeming with sea stars and anemones. The team also found two organisms that are yet to be identified. One is believed to be a sponge. The monitoring went very smoothly both days and the weather was perfect.

Elger Bay:

Monitored on May 29th. One of the most interesting finds on this beach were tiny sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis) that had only recently changed from the larval stage into adult urchins. They also found the small commensal crabs that live inside horse clams.

English Boom Beach:

Monitored on May 27th. The substrate on this beach was described as "tenacious, boot sucking mud". Because of this, instead of trying to run a regular profile line, a shorter line (125 feet) was laid out with quadrats every 10 feet. One unique feature of the beach is the presence of Spartina in spite of control efforts. Other interesting discoveries were those of a lugworm and softshell clams that were found in the digs. The team was treated to the presence of two bald eagles making numerous trips to carry fish to their young in a nearby nest. This is the first year this beach has been monitored.

Footprint Rock:

Monitored on September 6th, Footprint Rock was the final beach to be monitored for the year. The morning started out clear weatherwise, but as the tide rolled out, the fog rolled in. This beach is on the west side of Whidbey Island between the Partridge Point and North Hastie Lake sites. It has primarily a sand-cobble-boulder substrate. The Team Leader for this beach said the high point for him was just finally getting it done! Monitors were fascinated by the tiny pastel colored and Cheerio-shaped Lacuna snail eggs that they found on the seaweed. They also identified Anthopleura elegantissima (the aggregating anemone) and the isopods Gnorimosphaeroma oregonense (the beach pillbug) and Idotea wosnesenskii (the rockweed isopod). As team members were gathering up gear after monitoring was done, they spotted Indian paintbrush plants growing on the bluff above the profile area.

Harrington Lagoon:

Monitored on June 25th. Points on the profile path for the +1, O, and -1 tide transect lines were re-calibrated this year as the monitoring team has had problems for the last few years in getting far enough out on the profile line to do all of their transects. The 1996-97 winter storms caused this beach to lose a lot of sand and it is believed that this may be the reason the initially set transect lines are no longer accessible. This is a sand and gravel beach with lots of mussels and barnacles. No sea stars or brittle stars were found this year, which was considered unusual.

Holmes Harbor West (AKA Freeland Park):

Monitored on July 23rd. High up in the intertidal, this beach is primarily cobble, but then out around the -1 foot tide level it suddenly turns into very tenacious mud. The team found a good variety of organisms among the rocks, including the mottled sea star (Evasterias), two species of chitons (Mopalia sp. and Lepidozona mertensii), and a scaleworm. They were unable to get into the muddy area because of the danger of sinking. They did however, spot two moon snails (Polinices lewisii) that were plowing through the muck. After the monitoring was done, one of the team members pointed out a nearby sandy patch where she had found the invasive purple mahagany clam (Nuttallia obscurata), and where a number of the clams were in fact dug up. This invasive species has not gotten as much publicity as the European green crab or Spartina as it is a recent arrival to our shores. For more information about Nuttallia obscurata go to our EZ ID Web page for this species.

Honeymoon Bay:

Monitored by a veteran crew on June 12. The weather that day was praised as this was the first time they've had sunshine on monitoring day! Findings included an increase in numbers of moonsnails and a decrease in clams. There were lots of clamshells with moonsnail holes drilled in them on the beach.

Iverson Beach:

Monitored for the first time on June 24th. To the team's amazement, the profile line ran out almost 1200 feet! Not many organisms were found on this sandy beach but the team enjoyed a nice warm sunshiny day.

Langley Seawall:

Monitored on May 29th. for their expedition. For the first time the monitoring team made it all the way to the low tide line (645 feet from the starting point) without sinking to their necks in the sand. Once again they found the unusual species, Melanochlamys diomedea. This is an odd little (less than 1 inch long) critter similar to nudibranchs. It moves through muddy sand sucking up tiny little animals and swallowing them whole. The team also saw pits dug by feeding gray whales that had been exposed by the very low tide. It's not surprising that they also found the gray whales' prey, a ghost shrimp, Callianassa californicus.

Ledgewood:

Monitored on July 11th. Surprising finds were Zostera (eelgrass) and Phyllospadix (surfgrass) growing within 10 feet of each other! One was growing on hard clay and the other was rooted in soft sediments. It is unusal to find these two species growing in such close proximity because they tend to prefer such different habitats. They were identified by their flowering bodies.

Madrona Beach, Camano Island:

Monitored on August 9th. This is beach that's not new to our monitoring program but one that has not been done since 1997, so it was laid out as a new beach with new measurements, etc. The beach is bulkheaded and there have been some new structures added since it was last monitored. In spite of all this, the team found an amazingly diverse population of organisms. The many different species of worms found included flatworms, the ribbon worms Emplectonema gracile (dark green) Paranemertes (chocolate brown), and Tubulanus pollymorphus (bright red), the tubeworms Thelepus crispus (in a sandy tube on the underside of rocks), Pectinaria (ice cream cone worm or tusk worm), Serpula vermicuaris ( a hard white tube that Dr. Kozloff describes as "coiled or rambling" in shape), scaleworms, and other polychaetes. The team had two guest monitors who were homeowners that lived nearby and who were very interested in the monitoring process and the species found. Many other visitors to the beach stopped by to ask questions and the team educated them about Beach Watchers and the intertidal environment.

Maxwelton:

Monitored on June 23rd. Great weather! This beach is a mudflat with fresh water draining onto it. The team dug in several places and did not find any bivalves but did discover some polychaete worms. They also saw tubeworms, some spotty areas of eelgrass, and a few barnacles.

Maxwelton Tide Pools:

Monitored on May 11th. Great organisms including a scaleworm, tiny chitons only ¼ inch long, and dozens of tiny flatfish were found. Also found was a small nudibranch (Doridella steinbergae) living on the bryozoans on eelgrass. This beach has a large erratic that had hundreds of Nucella snails with their egg cases, tubeworms, Metridium senile anemones, and lots of hermit crabs (Pagurus sp.) on and around it.

North Hastie Lake:

Monitored on May 28th. The most significant findings were changes in the structure (less sand and more rocks) of the beach over the past year and that on the vertical measurement, the beach level had dropped almost a foot lower than it had been recorded the previous 4 years. This is a great west Whidbey beach with a real variety of organisms. Among EZ ID species, the team found Pisaster ochraceus (the big purple seastar) and Alaria marginata (ribbon kelp). They also found two species of sponge Halichondria which is tan or green in color and Ophlitaspongia which is bright red. Two deer approached the team as they worked and one strolled right through the profile area on it's way to the waterline for a sip of seawater.

Old Clinton Beach:

Old Clinton Beach got its yearly check up on September 5th. In the Team captain's words, "the greatest thing about the day was the team! " In fact, when they were finished monitoring, she treated them all to an espresso. There's always a lot of marine life on the Old Clinton beach and this year was no exception. The group found the usual barnacles Balanus glandula and B. crenatus. They also spotted a flatworm, the eelgrass isopod Idotea resecta, and some unusual looking strands on eelgrass that Susan King identified as caprellids. Caprellids are the walking stick-like amphipods that were found earlier this year at Cama Beach. They're also called "skeleton shrimp".

Onamac Beach, Camano Island:

Monitored on July 23rd. If you spell Onamac backwards, it spells Camano! This beach was last monitored 5 years ago. It's on a point of land, so two profile lines were laid out, one on each side of the point. One of the profiles ran through an all cobble substrate and the other through mixed sand, gravel, and cobble. The Team captain commented that the most interesting thing they found was how much the beach had changed since it was last monitored. In fact, after a big storm last winter, the whole point shifted to the southeast! She also said that more animal life was found this year.

Partridge Point:

A team of early birds hit this beach, starting at 7:30 am on June 23rd. They were amazed as always by its incredible diversity. The high point for the Team Captain was seeing the penpoint gunnels (Apodichthys flavidus). Several of the gunnels that the team found were quite large and one was bright red. The team also found a real variety of anemones, sponges, colonial ascidians, barnacles (including Balanus nubilus, the giant barnacle), crabs, seaweeds, and Surfgrass (Phyllospadix).

Possession Point:

Monitored on July 12th. For the last 3-4 years, there have been fewer and fewer clams, and this trend continued into this year. The team did find a few butter clams (Saxidomus giganteus) but not much else in the way of bivalves. They don't understand the reason for this as not a lot of people dig for clams here.

Rolling Hills:

Monitored on a Whidbey warm, sunny July 10th. This Penn cove beach has areas of mussel beds and also sandy areas with clams. The team saw two species of anemones -- the moonglow anemone (Anthopleura artemisia), and the plumose anemone (Metridium senile). They also found an interesting little critter commonly called a tusk worm or ice cream cone worm (Pectinaria sp.) because of the shape of its tube. The group enjoyed watching a pigeon guillemot carrying fish to its young in a hole high in the bluff.

Rosario:

Monitored on June 14th. Sadly, this beach had been badly trampled Memorial Day weekend when literally thousands of visitors responded to newspaper and TV features suggesting it as a great place to visit during the low tides. Some of these TV features were very responsible and included fundamentals of beach etiquette (Way to go KING5!) while others suggested how much fun it would be to collect things at the beach. Park staff was overwhelmed by the massive turnout of people. A few days after Memorial Day, one of the large Urticina crassicornis anemones was found to have a big hole poked in it and it was thought to be dying It's not certain whether this was a natural event or damage done by visitors but these anemones can live 60-80 years when undisturbed. During a subsequent visit to the beach to check up on this anemone it was found to be recovering! The area around the hole seemed to be filling in with new tissue and the color of the entire organism was much better. In spite of the trampling on this beach, many other interesting organisms were seen during monitoring. One small species of anemone found in a crevice continues to defy identification. Periwinkles turned out by the hundreds and several species of chitons were seen.

South Whidbey State Park & South Lagoon Point:

Monitored on May 14th and May 15th, respectively, by the same team, which nearly froze on Tuesday but were blessed with beautiful weather on the next day! No unusual intertidal species were found but swallows were nesting above one of their start points and they saw a bald eagle flying overhead. The high point of their two days occurred while they were eating lunch. A river otter came up on the beach near them and took a nap!

Sunlight Beach:

Monitored on May 26th. This is the longest (or one of the longest) profiles of our monitoring sites-3100 feet! This beach's veteren Team Leader came up with a "tool" that is a tad more accurate than the rope on the profiling poles used by other teams, which can stretch a bit. He attached a 20 ft. lightweight chain to the profile poles with turnbuckles. (Others may want to make this upgrade to their profiling poles!). Out near the low tide line they watched clam diggers dig up 3 HUGE geoducks (Panopea abrupta). They used a 3-foot metal tube pushed 4 feet into the sand, then dug around the clam until it was exposed. The very best part of monitoring Sunlight however was the scrumptious Bar-B-Q lunch prepared by two team members whose backdoor was just feet from the profiile start point.

Sunny Shores:

Monitored on June 26th. The highlight of the day was finding ghost shrimp (Callianassa californiensis). Many team members got a big kick out of seeing Beach Monitoring Co-Coordinator Jan Holmes do the "ghost shrimp shuffle" when a large specimen gave her a good pinch as she was holding it in her hand to explain its anatomy! This beach has a nearby bald eagle's nest so monitors also had a good day of eagle watching.

Trail's End (formerly known as Pratt's Bluff) beach:

Monitored on June 11th. The monitoring team found moonsnail egg masses, lots of clams, and the nifty little Onchidoris bilamellata nudibranch. Onchidoris bilamellata is small, only about ¾ inch long, and is cream colored with brown markings. It's a dorid nudibranch, which means it doesn't have fringe on its back. It does have a rather knobby texture however. This little nudibranch preys on barnacles so its common name is barnacle-eating Onchidoris.

Utsalady Beach:

Monitored on June 24th. This is a mud beach without a lot of organisms except for Ulva and clams. Eelgrass was found this year however; it was not found when the beach was previously monitored.

West Sunset Beach:

Monitored on July 11th. Even though there was supposed to be a -2.8 tide that day, the monitoring team leader says he still got soaking wet! This is usually a cobble beach but there was a lot more sand this year. The beach has a large erratic and the base of it was buried by the sand. A special find -- piddocks (possibly).

These interesting tidbits from this years Beach Watcher Monitoring Reports were extracted and written by Mary Jo Adams, Beach Monitoring Co-Coodinator, but have been edited slightly for web viewing. They originally appeared in the May, June & July 2002 issues of the Beach Log.

This page was last updated on September 2, 2005

The 2002 Finds!

Melanochlamys diomedea

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