When I am at the beach I like to see all of the critters that live there. Most of them are much smaller than me, so I feel safe looking for them. Any big ones I leave for the Oldies to deal with. Here are photos of me stalking the (small) denizens of Mollymook beach, just like my wildlife hero Sir David Attenbearough. You can find lots of small critters living in and under seaweed. My favourites are sand fleas. These aren't bitey fleas, they are called fleas because they can jump huge distances for such tiny things. They live in the sand and eat the washed up seaweed and dead things. Of course, it is wise to have a large rock nearby so that you can quickly climb up out of the way of bigger waves. My long-time readers will remember that I don't like crabs. Well, I have reached the stage where small ones don't worry me so much. After all, I am bigger than they are and can run faster. I find that the best way to get them to come out of their hole so that you can see them is to poke a stick down the hole and sometimes they will grab it and you can haul them out. It is kind of like crab-fishing. The little ones at Mollymook are almost the same colour as the sand and are much more scared of me than I am of them. You can spend hours investigating beach and rock pool critters.
Labels: beach, climbing, crabs, south coast
# posted by Bart Bear @ 10:05 am
