Tidal Pool Critters

While at the Cape, we stayed in Brewster, MA. The Brewster Flats are pretty amazing. According to Wikipedia, "The Brewster Flats are tidal flats on on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, particularly near the town of Brewster, and are a unique environment. They are the widest expanse of tidal flats in North America, rivaled in the western hemisphere only by a similar expanse in Brazil."

At low tide, you could walk straight out from the beach for at least a mile. There were all sorts of critters out there for the boys to find. Some critters were alive, and some of the critters were dead. The dead ones contributed a nice little stink during low tide, though that attracted all sorts of sea birds. Easy meal, I guess.

It was a nice walk out. Some bare sand, some shallow (mid-calf at it's deepest) water, and a few sandbars with little tidal rivers beside them. The boys loved seeing and learning about the sea life. Here are a few of the animals we saw:

Green crab

Hermit crab

Sand dollar (I'd never seen a living one before!)

Jellyfish (picture courtesy of my friend Babs who joined us for a day)We also saw huge horseshoe crabs, sea snails, small shrimp, small fish who got trapped in the tidal pools (and then chased by the boys), clams, sea gulls (of course), sandpipers, and a variety of other shore birds. There were tons of shells, but mostly oysters, mussels, clams, and razor clams.