A foggy morning with low visibility and muted colors and sounds. Under these conditions you’ll find more action down at your feet than off in the distance. On this morning the air was still and warm. Sunrise added little more than glare and from the foredune the atmosphere was as oppressive as the view was cheerless. I couldn’t have known that down on the beach there was a party going on. A beach hopper party.
Beach hoppers get pretty excited about any organic material in the drift line. Below, you can see their workings along an old bull kelp stipe.
On this mid-September morning beach hoppers had plenty to be happy about. The previous day had seen enough rain to raise river levels, which washed some fall eelgrass out to sea. By 2:30 am, high tide had pushed some of it onto the beach. A band of eelgrass dominated the drift line for three miles north of the estuary. The beach hoppers rejoiced.
Much of the mobilized material was dead and dying eelgrass, but there where some fresh clumps too, and a little macro algae. Up close it doesn’t look like much, but beach hoppers like it.
Fall is a season when a lot of organic material from estuarine and subtidal ecosystems gets transported onto the beach. The beach hoppers are ready for it. They depend upon it. The new material featured in this post brought out so many hoppers I couldn’t resist taking a video. I’ve posted it below. A warning up front, I took this video in portrait layout so it won’t fill your screen. It’s my first video, an experiment for sure, but timing is everything on theoutershores so I feel like it’s worth posting.
In case you’re not familiar with beach hoppers, I featured two common Oregon hoppers in California Beach Hopper, Megalorchestia californiana and The Pale Beach Hopper, Megalorchestia columbiana. I also wrote a few words about beach hoppers and beachcast kelp in An Ordinary Beachcast Kelp.
This eelgrass event occurred on on September 18, 2016. If you want to see some other things I encountered along the drift line that morning go to Wrack Line 2016.
theoutershores 
A Sea Hoppers like sand flea’s?? I’ve never heard of them…..and I don’t live that far up the coast..Vancouver Island? 🙂 Lb.
That’s right. Beach hoppers are called sand fleas by lots of people.
That makes sense! 🙂 Lb.
Wow Steve, I loved the video!So much information and so interesting to know it comes from other areas.
Thanks for sharing this amazing sea life information and all the great photos.
Hi Teri! Thanks! That’s quite a lot of hoppers, eh?
I liked this post Steve. How important do you think are these hoppers to the various birds that forage in the wrack line, including gulls?
Hey there Chris! I don’t even begin to know the answer. My guess is hoppers are more important for shorebirds. That’s just a guess. Gulls seem to be intent on carrion. I’ve also read some papers that specifically mention beach hoppers in the diet of shorebirds, but I can’t remember how important they are thought to be. I think, directly or indirectly they are important for some or all shorebirds. Now I’ve got to see what I can learn about the diet of snowy plovers and semipalmated plovers! Both would be good candidates. Thanks for taking the time to ask your question. If I learn more I’ll let you know.
ps -Speaking of the food chain, the predatory rove beetle, Thinopinus pictus, is said to specialize on beach hoppers. I wrote a little about that in https://theoutershores.com/2016/08/24/thinopinus-pictus-a-predatory-intertidal-staphylinid/