When I lived in Colorado, I missed the forests and beaches of Washington, but I did appreciate the open sky and sun sometimes.  I am glad to be back home.  The darkness of the forest feels like home, and I can walk out onto the beach at low tide to get 360 degrees of sky and sun.  The beach is part of Eagle Landing Park.  It is important to the health of the forest in its own way.  Eagles fish in the shallow waters, and nitrogen and calcium from digested fish fertilize the forest.

In the picture above you can see some little specks that are actually ducks.  They eat the eelgrass growing on the sandbar.  It is just at the right depth where it can get lots of sun and where the ducks don't have to dive too deep for it.  This sandbar is maintained by landslides and by the constant erosion of soil into Puget Sound.  At low tide, you can see where the eelgrass grows.  It only becomes exposed to air, briefly, when the tide is -3 feet or more.  Eagle Landing Park extends out about 300 feet westward from the high tide line, and the half acre of eelgrass, Zostera marina, is an important component of the park's ecology. 

Stone 32