What a year. I started with the first month in the southern hemisphere, then had possibly the busiest and often most stressful year of my life but I found some great stuff on the way, Including what I think is the highlight of my career so far. As ever, natural history and conservation has been my rock. So, in reverse order...
10. I don't do slugs but back in February I went all the way to Wales to see a whole slimy bunch of them. Here is the Alsatian Semi-slug.
9. I've wanted to see these freaky Tompot Blennies for years and was pleased to find loads off Saltdean in September.
8. It wasn't my first record of this as I had one last year but it was the first for West Sussex and the first for one of our reserves (Levin Down). Here is the awesome Platyrhinus resinosus.
7. Resurveying the ditches at Amberley was great as there was such positive changes. Like this Marsh Cinquefoil appearing in of our ditches after it was cleared.
6. Surveying the Murray Downland Trust's sites with Mike Edwards produced lots of surprises, such as this Villa cingulata at Heyshott Down.
5. I don't often see new longhorn beetles but the beetle season started with a bang with this Mesosa nebulosa found at Sheffield Park on a BMIG meeting by Nathan Clements in April.
4. The repeat of the big farm surveys in 2016 showed one of the farms in East Sussex become internationally significant for arable plants. I stumbled across three species I had never even seen before, like this Stinking Chamomile.
3. New Zealand was an incredible place. Perhaps the best memories are of the amazing seabirds. I'll never forget the first time an albatross flew right over our heads!
2. Sometimes a hunch pays off. An early morning start and we bagged the first records for Columbus Crabs in Sussex off Brighton Beach, all the way from the Sargasso!
1. Do I need to say anything other than CALOSOMA SYCOPHANTA!!!
You can't walk far in Brighton without being confronted with an array of outlandish novelty beards these days. Except perhaps when rock-pooling. Or so I thought. Olle found this Bearded Mussel under a stone at a Shore Search event. So even the shellfish have turned hipster. What's next? Anemones with tattoos? Crabs with dungarees? Fish with over-sized glasses, daft hair-cuts and weird moustaches?
Precisely my point, look at this idiot. Who does he think he is?! You don't have any of this nonsense with a Shanny. No the Tompot Blenny is a true hipster. That moustache is ridiculous. Take a look at yourself mate.
In all seriousness I was totally stoked to find Tompots at Saltdean just off Brighton beach. We also found:
Rock Goby (2) - new to the site.
Tompot Blenny (2) - new to the site
Shanny (1) - always the commonest fish, can't believe we saw (well caught) only one.
Five-bearded Rockling (many young ones)
Long-spined Sea Scorpion (1 young one)
One unidentified fish that I think was a small Sea Bass.
In the past I have also had there:
Sea Bass
Corkwing Wrasse
Narrow-headed Clingfish
Garfish (dead)
So it's proving to be a great spot for fish. I always get really carried away with fish rock-pooling. So much fun.
This is the incredible Dahlia Anemone Urticina felina and was the star of the show at this evening's Shoresearch event at Saltdean. We saw quite a few crustaceans and anemones but this was one that I really wanted to see, it was much bigger than I was expecting. It was quite a good Spring tide and right out near the water's edge I actually saw a few White Piddocks Barnea candida burrowing into the chalk! I love that this is going on just a few miles from my house in Brighton.
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...
I went rock pooling again this evening with the gang after work and it was amazing! Four species of fish, two of them new to me. Perhaps the most bizarre, wonderful, ugly, whatever you wanna call it is this Long-spined Sea Scorpion Taurulus bubalis. I have seen the Fatherlasher before on Anglesey which looks similar to this but this one was new to me. The long spine on the gill covers and the short tentacle at the corner of the mouth are clinchers. I only caught one of these.
I caught two of these Corkwing Wrasse Crenilabrus melops (again I have seen it on Anglesey). The black spot in front of the tail fin is characteristic.
The joint most abundant fish went to the Five-bearded Rockling Ciliata mustela, another species I've seen years ago on Anglesey! We caught three of these.
I've saved the best until last though. I have never seen anything like these little fish. I caught three and realised quite quickly it was one of the species whose fins have evolved into a sucker. It actually sucked on to my finger nail! There were two species of clingfish in the book we took into the field but neither of them looked right for it. There were two more in my key to shore fishes when I got home that looked more like it though. I think it is going to be the Small-headed Clingfish Apletodon dentatus but I'm not sure. I can't believe this is just down the road from me! Cool, hey?!
Shiver me timbers, it was cold on Saltdean sea front this afternoon. I had the afternoon off and went and joined Erin Pettifer and Gerald Legg on a
Shore Search survey. Most impressive were a couple of
Snakelocks Anemones Anemonia viridis, a species I have not seen for ten years since I lived on Anglesey. Cool looking things. We saw another anemone which was a new one for me,
Sagartia troglodytes. This one is also cool and quite common on this part of the coast, the
Strawberry Anemone Actinia fragacea.
Here we have two top shells. On the left is the Flat Top Shell Gibbula umbilicalis and on the right the Grey Top Shell Gibbula cineraria. Fairly straight forward these two.
This orange blob, I am reliably informed, is a Breadcrumb Sponge Halichondria panicea. I now have a sponge on my list.
A seaweed tick. The strange looking Sugar Kelp Saccharina latissima. Thanks for holding it up, unidentified human male. The other seaweed in the background is mostly Toothed Wrack Fucus serratus, the dominant plant there.
The rather racistly named Japweed Sargassum muticum, an introduction, is now going by the more acceptable name of Wireweed.
Someone found a dead Garfish Belone belone. I have ticked this as I used to see the fisherman occasionally catch them off the Marina when I was sea watching. A blenny was spotted but butter-fingers here tried to catch it with his hands and it got away. Then someone told me they bite and I lost interest.
And finally, a
Great Shipworm Teredo navalis, that Gerald said he had not recorded in this area before. I was amazed to find out that these are actually molluscs. It sure was an odd thing and I'm glad Gerald was able to identify it to species, I wish I had had a closer look at it now though. I had a wicked time, I added five species, ending the day on 3920 species. If you want to get involved, have a look at the
Shore Search pages on the Sussex Wildlife Trust's website. As you can tell, I got quite into it and could have stayed there all afternoon, even though I could barely operate my camera, my hands were so cold. I will definitely be doing more of this though!
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