A news report from The Tribune caught my eye a couple of days ago. It is a piece, which you can read here, on king tides. The gravitational pull from the moon causes the water on the oceans of the earth to bulge out towards and away from the moon, and to pull in at right angles to the moon. This is what causes tides on earth. The gravitational pull from the sun does the same thing.
King tides occur when the pull of the sun and the pull of the moon line up, aided by other weather factors, and result in the highest tides of the year. And that is going to happen fairly soon. The maximum high and low tides for California will occur on December 4th causing the tides along the California coast to change by as much as 8 feet! This is going to mean some impressive high tides with possible flooding and increased wave action, and also some amazing low tides that will offer up some terrific tide pooling opportunities!
So, go out to the rocky coast at low tide as see what you can find!
abirdingnaturalist 
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