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| Rain trying to catch sand fleas |
Saturday I set out ready to catch some sand fleas. I went to my usual beach spot which is by the Ormond Holiday Club. I brought my field journal, pencil, sand flea rake, scoop for taking sediment samples, ziploc bags to store the sediment samples and permanent marker to label my bags. I got to the beach just after 11a.m. which was a few hours after high tide. There were not a lot of people around which was nice. I saw quite a few birds on the beach so I chose a spot near them to start trying for sand fleas.
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| Mister Pinchy |
I quickly realized that I need a lot more practice looking for sand fleas. I caught a total of zero the whole three hours. My helpers didn't catch any either. We did however catch a crab that my son named Mister Pinchy. It was quite frustrated because I actually saw a few sand fleas as the water receded but was unable to successfully catch any in the rake. We also tried digging for them which was not successful. I'm going back out this weekend and instead of camping in one spot, I'm going to walk the beach and hopefully have better luck finding some sand fleas.
Where did you go? And please remember to remind folks why you are doing this--what is your scientific question.
ReplyDeleteAlso--just because you didn't find any doesn't mean it's a failure. It simply means that for some reason there were none. Now--why is that? Is it the type of sediment? Time of year? Water temperature, etc. This is part of the scientific process--there IS something to learn from your day at the beach--you just need to figure out what it is :-)
DeleteThat is eiher a Calico or Sargasam Crab.
ReplyDelete