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Look Closer


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While the reddish mudflats look smooth and empty on the surface, they are really in constant change from the tides. At high tide they are underwater. At low tide they are exposed to the air. The mudflats ecosystem, separating the saltmarsh from the Bay of Fundy, provides an essential link in the food chain. This sensitive inter tidal area depends on the surrounding beaches and soil for the nutrients that sustain its invertebrate and shellfish populations. As the tide recedes revealing the great mud surface to the air, millions of minute crustaceans and their pin-hole burrows are left visible. Tiny shrimp-like creatures called corophia crawl out of their mud burrows on the flats to seek mates. Gulls hover eager to swoop to find food among the thousands of clamshells left exposed by the current of the receding tide. (Gulls crack open the shells by dropping them on the rocks from the air.) Sandpipers and other shore birds stalk the flats, spearing their meals from the mud in preparation for their 10,000 km, non-stop flight to South America. Herons stalk fish here. Black ducks dabble for aquatic insects and plants.