THE ATLANTIC NEVER SLEEPS

Today I would like to invite you to the Portuguese Atlantic coast. I will show you a few marine creatures that I managed to observe during my walk on the beach near Porto. I don’t know about you, but I am very fascinated by such creatures and I really enjoy photographing them. Perhaps it is because most of them are completely new to me, as I had never seen them before and they cannot be found on the Polish Baltic coast.

The Atlantic can wash something different onto the shore every single day. I walked along the beach for three consecutive days, and each day I came across something completely different. In the first photo we can see an unidentified object. Honestly, to this day I still do not know exactly what it is. At first it looked a bit like a fragment of a jellyfish and a bit like some organism from another planet, but the most likely explanation seems to be that it was one of the SEA SLUGSs, perhaps already partially decomposed or an injured specimen. Its structure was somewhat gelatinous, which is very characteristic of sea slugs, and such organisms decompose very quickly after being washed ashore, which is why they are often difficult to identify.

In the following photos we can see BARNACLES, which are small crustaceans living in the tidal zone. If I remember correctly, they already appeared once on my profile before, but that photo was quite blurry. This time I managed to encounter them again and take slightly sharper pictures. At first glance they look like tiny shells or small stones, but they are actually living organisms that, believe it or not, attach themselves to rocks for their entire lives! When I saw them for the first time, I was really surprised by how massively they can occur. They create huge colonies, covering entire rocks and from a distance they look like thousands of tiny eyes. 😁 Barnacles cope very well with difficult conditions such as strong winds, waves, and constant changes in water levels. An interesting fact is that when the tide comes in, they open their characteristic little “doors” and filter tiny organisms from the water, which they then feed on.

The following photos show a true micro-world of the Atlantic. Right next to the barnacles we can also see small SEA SNAILS attached to the rocks, as well as tiny MUSSELS hiding in the cracks between them. As you can see in the photos below, all these organisms live very close to one another and create something like a small coastal ecosystem, which can of course be best observed during low tide.

What surprised me the most is how incredibly well these organisms are able to adapt to living in such a harsh environment. They have to withstand strong waves, salty water, wind, as well as long hours without water during low tide.

In the following photos we can see small mussels. There were really huge amounts of them there. They formed very large colonies. They occurred mainly between the rocks, but also on the wet sand. Mussels also play a very important role in the coastal ecosystem. They are able to filter water and serve as food for many other organisms. They can attach themselves very firmly to the surface using special threads, thanks to which the waves of the Atlantic are not able to move them.

In the final photos we can see an even more diverse fragment of the Portuguese coastline. Here we can also spot algae with characteristic air-filled bladders. Most likely, this is BLADDERWRACK. Thanks to these bladders, the algae are able to float closer to the water surface and gain better access to sunlight. Photos like these show just how incredibly complex and diverse this coastal micro-world really is.

I must admit that the Atlantic, when it comes to its micro world, is truly very fascinating. Compared to our Polish coastline, our Baltic Sea looks very calm and raw, while in the Atlantic practically every fragment of rock is teeming with life and everywhere you can see some organisms, smaller or larger. And I think that is exactly why I like such walks the most, especially in the morning hours, because you never fully know what the Atlantic will throw onto the shore this time and what we will manage to find. Most people would probably walk past it indifferently, while I like to look at this small yet incredibly interesting world that takes place right beneath our feet.

This is my entry for PhotoFeed Contest - Wildlife Photography Round 169

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