Hit the Beach!

At least when we're there.

The Beach Naturalist program kicked off today, so when the alarm rang at 7:30 am, I actually hopped out of bed, tossed on my jogging clothes and was off to Des Moines Beach. Not many people, other than fellow beach naturalists, due to the weather.

But we found some neat stuff, including key hole limpets, snacking on something, we couldn't figure out what, ochre starfish, some pretty beat up moon snails (I think chewed on by crabs or dropped by birds), and some of the largest mossy chitons I've ever seen.

The chitons have to be about 100 years old.

Anyway, here's an article about us, and check out our schedule at the Seattle Aquarium Web site. I wish I could say I took this picture, but I didn't. Here's the info below from the Seattle Post Intelligencer Web site.

*Photographer:* Anne Julson, Marysville *Photo taken:* May 8, Edmonds
waterfront *Photographer's description:* "I came upon many of these sun starfish
during an extreme low tide. I was fascinated by the patterns they made as they
moved around the sand. I have made several attempts to see these before, and
this time the low tide was finally low enough. I used my Canon EOS Rebel
XTi."

Check out theses pictures sent by readers that the PI posts every day. They are spectacular.