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2001

Yummy Muds of Minas - May, 2000, Kingsport Beach

June 24, 2001 - "YUMMY MUDS OF MINAS" Field Trip for Blomidon Naturalists
Society, i.e., Intertidal Life of Kingsport Beach.

Please refer to two recent reports from our BNS Newsletter: (1) "Brief
Encounter with an Alien Landscape" by Sherman Bleakney (coiner of "Yummy
Muds")(on an exploration at Kingsport during a very low tide on May 17,
1999)(BNS Newsletter, Spring 2000): and (2) my account of a naturalists'
field trip there on a mediocre low tide on May 21, 2000 (BNS Newsletter,
Summer 2000).

In both articles you'll read about what fascinating life-forms live along
all of our extensive local intertidal shores. The only good guide to much
of this biodiversity is the out-of-print "SEASHORES (Summer Nature Notes
for Nova Scotians)"(1987)(Lancelot Press, Hantsport) by Merritt Gibson, who
tells me he is working on getting it reprinted. Other very useful and very
well illustrated books are (1) Chris Harvey-Clark's field guide, "EASTERN
TIDEPOOL & REEF" (1997)(Hancock House, Surrey, B.C.), (2) "AT THE SEASHORE" (Atlantic Edition), by Pam Hickman and illustrated by Twila Robar-DeCoste (1996)(Formac Publ. Co. Ltd., Halifax), and (3) "BEACHCOMBING the Atlantic Coast", by Peggy Kochanoff (1997)(Mountain Press Publ. Co., Missoula).

Also check out Sherman Williams' Web-site (www.glinx.com/sherm) each month
for his graphic summary of the tides (and the BNS Calendar, of course).
Sherman's graph shows at a glance that today was the biggest tide of the
month, because of the closeness of New Moon (on 21st) and Perigee (on 23rd)
-- the latter is the shortest distance between the Moon and the Earth
(hence the biggest lunar pull of the month).

Our day was quite warm and muggy but with a nice breeze. I didn't realize
that Kingsport Gala Day(s) occurred the day before, with all of its
excitement in the wee hours of this morning -- only one Kingsport resident
came on our trip.

We arrived an hour before the low tide, and I showed a collection of shells
as a preview of critters and names. Then I walked the 10 participants
through the salt-marsh in the lee of the old wharf and to the newly exposed
upper intertidal mud, which was absolutely COVERED with wall-to-wall MUD
SNAILS! Zillions! I always do this initially to emphasize how much life
is here in/on the mud!

We then walked along the exposed side of the wharf eastward? toward the low
tide level. In the upper sandy intertidal zone, lots of meandering tracks
belonged to what I call SAND SOWBUGS (isopod crustaceans).

Along the way we saw and dug up MUD SHRIMPS (COROPHIUM) in their U-shaped burrows, white slimy RIBBON WORMS,lots of long & skinny brownish
HETEROMASTUS worms, BAMBOO WORMS in sandy tubes, and pink BLOODWORMS or BAITWORMS (GLYCERA), which have been in the news lately, on account of the unsustainability of the worm-digging industry near Yarmouth and elsewhere. Kingsport residents told me that 20 or more BAITWORM DIGGERS have been working the Kingsport mud-flats (mouth of the Habitant River) for the last
two weeks or so.

I also sieved out lots of SAND SHRIMPS from a tide pool around a rock, where we noticed also our first of oodles of HERMIT CRABS in their snailshell-homes.

Interestingly for myself and the others, we found two PAIRS of HERMIT CRABS
that were interlocked (perhaps a pre-mating "embrace"??). In each pair, one was markedly larger than the other, but I don't remember whether it was the large one or small one that had the other by one leg in one of its pincers.

In the lowest intertidal zone, we found oodles of squirting holes/burrows of large RAZOR CLAMS -- I dug some up, with difficulty, but they wouldn't "perform" for us by reburrowing -- however, a small one quickly did stick out its white foot, grab the mud, upright itself, and then quickly go down into its new burrow.

Along the low water line, we also found lots of upper shells (carapaces) of LADY CRABS, a living adult SPIDER CRAB, 2 living adult MOON SNAILS -- not far away were several large "SAND COLLARS" (egg-cases of moon snails), a rock covered with a tan encrusting SPONGE, lots of living DOGWINKLES with their egg-cases, untold zillions of egg-cases of MUD SNAILS? covering nearly everything that was solid, one "sexy stack" of 2 SLIPPER-SHELLS (a small male on top of a large female, attached to a rock), and a few feathery colonies of attached HYDROIDS or HYDROZOANS, distant cousins of jellyfish and corals and very important this ecosystem, where the muddy water contains oodles of tiny living zooplankters that the hydroids eat. (I showed colonies of another HYROID, OBELIA (or now LAOMEDEA), which hang under middle intertidal sandstone outcrops.)

In the eroding sandstone cliff we looked for last year's RAVEN NEST -- we couldn't see the nest, but lines of guano there certainly indicated the past presence of some kind of bird.

Also shown was an extremely dense bed of dwarfed, crowded SOFT-SHELLED
CLAMS (of "clams & chips" fame?) in a tiny exposed salt-marsh in the upper mud. We also saw lots of life-forms and shells not mentioned in this report. Leaf through Merritt Gibson's "SEASHORES", if you can find a copy, to see some of the vast diversity of algae, plants, and animals that live along our shores.

Finally we walked past the southern cottages to a line of intertidal VERY OLD TREE STUMPS -- comparable stumps east of Evangeline Beach at Grand Pre died 3500 to 4500 years ago (carbon-dated). These stumps are so well preserved, thanks to the very fine sediments that buried them, that they are still made of wood that seems to be not at all mineralized.

We also saw at least 7 GREAT BLUE HERONS resting in a group on the mudflat, and a family group of RAZOR CLAM-DIGGERS? (or QUAHOGS?) in the lowest intertidal zone.

Thanks to Elaine & Don Hendricks for sending me digital photos from the trip.

Thanks are also due to residents Richard & Merle Foote, who generously washed off our mud with their hose!

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