Our first stop was to cobble beach, which is a beach that contains rocks and sand. Bruce than went on to explaining the "Brazilian Nut Theory" which states that the bigger or larger objects will be on top. After that we were asked to collect shells which were mainly blue mussels, periwinkles, and some clam shells. As we examined the tiny periwinkle shells Bruce pointed out that on some of the shells there had been what appeared to be tiny drill holes in the shells. Then came out first question:What caused the holes in the shell of the periwinkles? Through some research on the internet, I believe that a snail caused the hole. This snail can be known as the moon snail. After that Bruce asked for us to get a live periwinkle and let it come out through the beauty of our singing, which had no real effect other than keeping our hand still.
Our next voyage was to walk along the shore until we got to the man made sea wall and rock area of the beach. To have some lunch which was thankfully donated by class members. As we were eating Bruce was on the hunt and he found some snail shells behind a rock. These snail shells which had no business being there gave us our second question: How did the shells get here and what are they? The snail shells i discovered to be land snails known as grove snails by typing in snails on Lovells Island. I have two theory's on how the shells got there one could be from harsh weather and second from a predatory bird which i was unable to identify.
After lunch we walk to the tide pool. Here we saw that it was high tide still but was going down. Bruce than asked us to get some crabs that could be located under some rocks. When i picked up my crab the lady that joined us whose name escapes me but works for the park told me that i had gotten a Asian crab. I asked her how she knew, she said that they had a mark on there stomach and showed me. Which answers the third question: What kind of crabs did we find in the tide pool?
After the tide pool we walked through a trail and were capturing some snails, berries, and tour of the fort. After we captured the snails and examined them we went back to the tide pool. Here i saw a fellow classmate snatch a lobster. After the second tour of the tide pool we went to the hut and talked about snails. Then our fourth question was brought up: What is the difference in shells between the live snails and dead ones? Right off the bat you could see color differential. The dead ones were bleached while the lives ones were full of color.
As for yesterdays Barking Crab predictions i was wrong when i said that i had seen various types of sponge like fig, which was in fact crude. There was also some tunicate present.
Sean Escobedo
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