Brown and green are the colors of the estuary. It is here that the river meets the sea in shallow, protected bays. The estuary serves a banquet of decaying plants, tiny floating plants and animals called plankton, and little fishes. Millions of sea animals get their start in life feeding in the quiet waters of the estuary. They can find shelter in salt marshes, beds of slender eelgrass, or wide mudflats.
An estuary has very little wave action, so it provides a calm refuge from the open sea. Some of the animals, such as flounder, eels, and striped bass are just visitors to the estuary. Small fishes such as stickleback and mummichogs, mud snails, and oysters may spend their entire lives there.

Updated August 17, 1998.
Copyright 1998, Gulf of Maine Aquarium
Please email comments and questions to Katahdin@octopus.gma.org