Читать книгу Seashore - Nick Baker - Страница 6

Look at a rocky shore from the top of a cliff or walk from the strand line towards the sea and you cannot help but notice bands of different colours and textures that run up and down the beach. These bands represent where on the beach certain plants and animals live, and it is clear that life is not scattered randomly all over the shore. Certain species that cannot move about freely, such as barnacles and seaweeds, live in very specific places and this is a reflection of what conditions they can tolerate between the tides.

These stripes are known as zones and all coasts have them, but they are much more obvious on rocky shores. There are four main zones – the splash zone, the lower shore, the middle shore and the upper shore – and each one is determined by how much time they spend getting wet every day between the high and low tides. Page 8 tells you how the tides change every day and throughout the year, and also the cycles of the Sun, Earth and Moon.

The best way to get to know the zones is by creating a simple beach map. This exercise is a very useful way to start to get to know the life between the tides, and you also start to see just how different life is in each zone.

To get a good picture of the beach, survey it at low tide. Stretch a ball of string from the top of the beach to the sea. Then for every metre of its length, write down what you see in a note book. Are there barnacles? Are there limpets? What colours and different kinds of seaweeds can you see? Try to identify as much as possible from a good field guide.