Crustaceans like the hermit crab scurry along the shore looking for food. Sea worms stick their heads out of the sand and trap food as it comes by. When the tide is out, the sea birds hit the beach looking for food. Curlews, sandpipers and red knots use their sharp bills to poke in the sand for worms and other invertebrates. American oyster catchers use their strong bills to crack open mussels and cockles.
Gulls scour the beach searching for crabs and small fish.
The intertidal zone isn't all the same. It has four separate regions with unique features and challenges for the organisms that live in them. The spray zone or the supralittoral fringe is the farthest from the ocean and it is the driest zone. Usually this zone is just reached by the ocean's spray. Think of it as the desert of the intertidal zone.