Teal sea

Floating seaweed

Garibaldi fish glimpsed through the waves

Seaside

Merganser

Harbor seal

Green anemone

The ages of Western Gull
From back to front: juvenile, second year, adult

Crab shell

Lined shore crab 

An osprey having brunch:

Seaside birds

Gull shaking a paper bag

Until it acquired its prey... a scone!

Extractive foraging is the process of extricating food from a container, e.g. nuts from their shells. It is seen in primates, corvids, and octopi, and is a hallmark of intelligence. Gulls are fairly good at it too, and evidently regard food packaging as just another type of "shell."

Egret with a big Sculpin

"Hey, can I have some of that?"

A chase, which I didn't see how it resolved, over the tidal rocks

Grebes afloat like fuzzy boats

Floundering gull

A western gull flew in with some sort of flounder or flatfish, which I suspect it stole from a diving bird. Then it had some difficulty actually consuming its prey:

Darn,  dropped it...

How do I eat this thing?

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh

Note the featureless pale "underside" of the body

And the two eyes on the "top side"

Going...

Going....

Not quite...

Almost...

Gone! 

This isn't even the most awkward prey gulls eat.

X-ray seahorses

circa 1910: An X-ray photograph of pot bellied seahorses (Hippocampus abdominalis).

From a LIFE gallery of x-rays.

Aquarium creatures

 Feather stars (aka crinoids)

Underside of a starfish

(More below the fold)

Collection of seahorses

Seahorses are displayed at an endangered species exhibition at London Zoo. ( Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

From Boston.com's 50 best photos from the natural world. 

Lake sharks of Triassic Kyrgyzstan

Several 230-million-year-old teeth and egg capsules uncovered at a fossil site in southwestern Kyrgyzstan suggest hundreds of young sharks once congregated in a shallow lake, a new study says.
Called hybodontids, the animals were likely bottom feeders, like modern-day nurse sharks.
Mothers would've attached their eggs to horsetails and other marshy plants along the lakeshore. Once born, the Triassic-era babies would've had their pick from a rich food supply of tiny invertebrates, while dense vegetation offered protection from predators.

Image (showing a beautiful fossil egg case) and information from National Geographic.

Flying gurnard

This fish doesn't actually fly in the air; its beautiful wing-like fins are used to scare predators.

Two sunfish

Juvenile

Skeleton of adult

Fishbowl