![]() Soon it's a coral head, cemented and secure on the seabed. Life on a coral reef starts with one coral larva that lands in the right place and grows. The fish leap out of the water at just the wrong moment and the dolphins feast until the tide retreats. One animal peels off from the group and swims rapidly in a circle, stirring up the mud and driving the fish towards the other dolphins that have lined up in a row. As they work their way inland they are forcing mullet to leap right into their waiting mouths. Off Florida, a small group of bottlenose dolphins have a cunning plan. ![]() They can't breathe or swim underwater, so they wait for weak tides to get into the water to shed their eggs - that way they're less likely to drown. They need weak tides for good reason - they must spawn in the sea and they are land crabs. On Christmas Island, land crabs time their annual migration to November and December nights when the tides are weak. And when the sea is as far out as possible, a female raccoon passes on a few tips in crab cracking to her youngsters. Twice a month the moon pulls with maximum force, making the sea level rise and fall even further than normal. Raccoons in British Columbia also have a passion for seafood. And in South Africa the world's fastest snail surfs the waves on its big foot, hunting for food on the falling tide. They religiously practice their skills every day as the tide goes out. These beach-dwelling Aussies convert an entire beach into minute footballs as they work at breakneck speed to filter food out of sand grains. Believe it or not, the best 'back-heel' in the world belongs to a tiny sand bubbler crab. Five hundred finback whales come here to gorge on the rich herring pickings. In the Bay of Fundy, Canada, two billion tons of water flow in and out each day - more than all the rivers on Earth combined. As the moon orbits the Earth, its gravitational pull causes the sea level all over the world to rise and fall. ![]() This happens on key days each month, when the moon and sun combine their gravitational pull to maximum effect. The hunting season is short, however, and soon the pups learn to stay clear of the water.Ī huge tidal wave sweeps 200 miles inland up the River Amazon. Though it seems the whale has an advantage, it has to be careful not to get stranded on the beach. As the pups play in the surf a whale comes, trying to snatch them. Every year along the coast of Patagonia, a group of killer whales makes an appearance at exactly the same time as the sea lion pups are starting to swim. When they emerge from the water they are still white but they soon turn pink! At sea they restrict their blood flow to the center of their bodies to keep in the heat, but when they land they dilate their vessels and blood flushes their skin. Walruses come to the land each year to molt and rest from the cold, and on Round Island in the northern Pacific 40,000 of them cram onto a mile or so of beach. They return together to their cliffside nests to avoid the peregrines, ravens and sea eagles that swoop on them in mid-air. As sunset approaches, hundreds of thousands of crested auklets appear out to sea like great clouds of smoke. The world's largest eagle, the Stellar's sea eagle, steals kittiwakes from their nesting cliffs. In summer, four million seabirds crowd the cliffs of Talan, in the Sea of Okhotsk in Eastern Russia. Every year, millions of capelin appear along the coasts of Newfoundland, throwing themselves out of the sea writhing along the beach for miles. Fish also drag themselves on the beach to lay eggs. Four hundred thousand Ridley's turtles coordinate their return to land in a massive simultaneous egg lay called an arribada. The whole cycle takes six months and the turtles do not feed at all during this time. After laying three to four clutches of eggs each every two weeks or so, they make the return journey to Brazil. Each year the population of green turtles living off the coast of Brazil undertakes a massive 5,000-mile migration to the tiny island of Ascension.
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