Sea Critters!

One of our favorite field trips last year was our trip to Titlow Beach, out in Tacoma. It is a rocky, muddy beach full of old pilings and lots of barnacles. But when the tide goes out, it is a treasure trove of sea life. We headed out to Titlow during one of the year's lowest tides and hunted for sea critters.

David was on the lookout for an octopus, since we saw one there last year. We didn't see an octopus, but we did find tons of sea stars, big and small.

A pretty purple one

More sea stars

David found some teeny-tiny baby brittle stars. You can see it just to the palm-side of his middle finger.

Grayson found a dead crab. There were lots of small shore crabs, and some larger ones as well. Grayson got his finger pinched by a mean old crab - poor buddy. Thankfully it wasn't this size.

A lot of the tide pools had gunnel fish. They look like an eel (in fact, last year that's what we thought they were). Squirmy little suckers!

Trying to catch a gunnel fish

It is a great beach for tide pool discovery! A little muddy, but nothing some rainboots can't handle. We had a good time, even if we didn't find an octopus this year.