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Taking things littorally
Posted by Graeme Lyons , Sunday, 12 May 2013 15:13
Last Wednesday I went down to the rock pools off of Saltdean as part of another Shoresearch event. I find it hard to learn seaweeds when there is bigger game to catch so I didn't try and learn any plants and spent the whole time catching fish and crustaceans. I didn't see any that I hadn't seen before but I did catch this cool Shanny which changed colour and pattern after a bout five minutes in this white tray. It's hard to believe it's the same individual fish! I also caught a Corkwing and a Long-spined Sea Scorpion. Crabs included Edible, Shore and Velvet-swimming. Gerald Legg showed me a tiny brittle star called Amphipholis squamata which is the first starfish on my list.
These polychetes were quite unusual too. Known as Sand Masons Lanice conchilega, I would easily recognise these species again.
My list is currently stands at 4245 species. I'm not spending as much time out in the field this year, instead I'm trying to process a huge backlog of records into my Recorder 6 data base. There are 1655 records in there so far, but there are tens of thousands to be entered! Better get back to it then...
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Had good fun in the rockpools at Saltdean 3 years back, it's a great place. Last week I was on a Welsh beach and found masses of sand mason worm "casts" but no worms within. I wondered if they vacated the tubes this time of year, or if they disappear into the sand if the tubes are lifted. Either which way I didn't see any. Lesser Sand Eel was cool though :)