Читать книгу Afoot & Afield: Orange County. A Comprehensive Hiking Guide онлайн

70 страница из 92

Closer to the surf, the middle intertidal zone features rock depressions called tidepools, and luxuriant growths of surfgrass, which look like bright, shiny green mats of long-bladed grass. The tidepools serve as refuges for mobile animals like fish, shrimp, and the sluglike sea hare, as well as some of the relatively immobile animals like urchins and various shellfish. Here, the effects of biological erosion (or weathering) are apparent in the many pits and cubbyholes in the rocks occupied by various creatures.

In the low intertidal zone, many kinds of seaweeds thrive, including the intriguing sea palm. Animal life, however, is usually concealed beneath the rocks. Look for sea stars, sea urchins, sponges, worms, chitons, snails, abalones, and hermit crabs. If you’re very lucky, an octopus may come your way. Remember that all marine life, shells, and rocks are protected.

Giant keyhole limpet

On your way up toward Little Corona Beach, you pass two picturesque sea stacks just offshore, both pierced by wave action. The first is known as Ladder Rock and the second Arch Rock, but either could just as well have been called Bird Rock for the ever-present pelicans and other avian life. Ladder Rock is 0.3 mile up the coast, and Arch Rock is another 0.3 mile beyond.