Birding, catching marine life, and spending time out under the sun in the shallows of the bay are all a part of the BioBlitz Day Camp. What you hear are the youthful participants taking a bio-inventory of North Side Park in Ocean City. Species caught in the nets are placed in tanks and cataloged. It is a great opportunity for kids to learn about the variety of creatures in the bay and how they relate to one-another. They also get hands-on experience in doing what field-biologists do.

"Ooh! Got a mummichog!" exclaimed one of the kids as he pulled the little fish from the net. The speed in which he'd identified the critter was an indication of what he'd already learned during the camp experience. Also among their collection were sea nettles, snails, small crabs, and lots and lots of eel grass.

Eel grass is such a crucial element to bay health. "That's where the small stuff is," said Jim Rapp, who was helping to educate the kids at the camp. The thick patches of wispy grass shelter and sustain bait fish, young crabs, and other smaller marine species, which in turn sustain the medium-sized species, which sustain the larger species. All of the sea life we love, whether we eat them or watch them, start in these shallows and marshes of the coastal bays. From water comes life. This is the lesson learned by the kids at the BioBlitz Camp.

Written by Erik Yount. Photography by Errol Webber.