Night Rockpooling at Marazion!

Midnight Madness at Marazion! Photo copywrite Alan Barker

 What an amazing experience! Despite light drizzle our volunteers only Night Rockpooling session at Marazion causeway was far better than expected! Setting out in our wetsuits and high viz vests and head torches anyone looking on must have wondered what we were up to! Crabs were out and about everywhere and seemed very surprised to be disturbed by crazy humans with torches!
Standing in the shallows our torches attracted hoards of tiny mysid shrimps, prawns and juvenile fish. We were soon joined by inch long adult atlantic cuttlefish. these guys are absolute beauties and although we had seen some on the day time survey we were treated to far more sightings on the night rockpooling!

The survey highlighted once again the incredible diversity of life on this shore and proved that night rockpooling allows you to build a much more full picture of the species present. Particularly species that are more active at night such as fish, crustaceans and cephalopods!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KAGnqnXGWs&feature=youtu.be

Shore crab in Torch light, Matt Slater 

Atlantic or little Cuttle Sepiola atlantica (approx 20mm total length), Matt Slater 

Star Ascidian Bottryllus shlosseri - a colonial sea squirt (each star approx 5mm across), Matt Slater

Dahlia anemone glowing blue in LED torch light, Matt Slater

A tiny baby tompot blenny found beneath a large boulder. (length approx 2 cm). Matt Slater

A beautiful sea slug Eubranchus farrani found by Jake Meyers and Trudy Russell. (Length approx 10mm), Matt Slater

Decorator crab Macropodia spp (Width approx 4cm), covered in sea weed for camoflague. Matt Slater

Mega Shoresearch Weekend 2014 longrock Marine day

The first event of our Mega Shoresearch weekend was a survey and public event at Long Rock near Penzance.

Here an extensive reef of Mylor slate lies just outside the current boundary of the Mounts Bay Proposed Marine Conservation Zone. We were joined by Local marine expert David Fewick and Rob Seabold of Natural England as well as a host of keen volunteers and the slippery rocks of this impressive reef were surveyed! 

Holes bored in Mylor slate by Piddocks - photo by Margaret Gardener

The slate is bored in many places by burrowing bivalves called Pidocks, themselves a rare speices to find on our coasts which have very particular geological requirements! Just to the West of the reef lies a fantastic eel grass bed which although taking a beating by our winter gales is still hanging on in there! 

the tide rapidly came in and sadly I didnt make it out to the piddock holes so will definately need to visit again soon! 

Cat worm Nephtys hombergi  found in mud

Cat worm Nephtys hombergi  Proboscis extended - Fearsome! 

Thin Tellins were common in the mud

Despite a windy and wet afternoon we werent deterred and thanks to a fantastic new waterproof heavy duty gazebo, and the loan of Lawrence Smiths fantastic luxury gas bbq we were able to feed and water all the shoresearch volunteers and our PANACHE seasearch divers who carried out an evening shoredive near the causeway. 

Sarah and the food!!  - thanks to Loz  from Ocean high Paddleboarding for lending us his EPIC GAS Barbecue! 

PANACHE Shoresearch and Seasearchers at Mounts bay

Battery Rocks ROCKS

We had a great turnout of volunteers for the Shoresearch survey today at Battery Rocks right next to the jubilee pool, Penzance. My good friend Rory Goodall of www.elementaltours.co.uk was leading a fox club rockpooling event and myself and the Shoresearch volunteer team came along to conduct a survey of this important site! We were not disappointed! It is a fantastic shore!  We were met by David Fenwick of www.aphotomarine.com who showed us no end of fascinating tiny creatures we wouldn't have found otherwise! I definitely need a set of reading glasses! It was great to meet Liam from Falmouth aquarium and his girlfriends dad and brother who relentlessly discovered interesting things.
Prize for find of the day was definitely the candy striped flatworm and the beautiful Risso's crab found by Rob wells who had travelled all the way from Mevagissey to be at the survey (Margaret and Tim came even further, travelling all the way from Fowey!)

I'm looking forward to heading to Mounts bay again soon - next survey / public event is at Long Rock on the 12th July!

In this gully there is a multitude of seaweed species

Cowrie grazing in a lowershore overhang

Thanks to David Fenwick for helping us find this bizzare tiny isopod Campecopea hirsuta that lives inside empty barnacles on the upper shore at this site. this one was about 3mm. You are looking at its abdomen and the spine that is sticking up is part of pereon segment 6 of its back.

Montagues blenny portrait! Ruben found 10 of these in one pool.

Rissos crab Xantho pilipes found by Rob Wells

Hairy legs are the key identification feature but they are also far more colourful than Montagu's crabs.

David found this piece of rock covered in sponge and barnacles Acaster spongites within Dysidia fragilis sponge.

I found  this just sitting on a muddy ledge inside a small cave out of the water - a topknot - a type of flatfish.

Rob Wells found this beautiful large (one inch) candystripe flatworm.

Gastroclonium ovatum - Red grape weed 

Fantastic Marazion yeilds strange surprises!

The weather stayed fine for our Marazion Marine day yesterday and a large group of shoresearchers turned out for what proved to be another epic day on the shore!
We had a great turnout of families for the public rockpool ramble and, who could fail to be impressed by the beautiful eel grass beds and colorful seaweeds and anemones we found?
People were amazed at the variety of crabs found on the shore - edible crabs, velvet crabs, shore crabs, Montagu's crabs, long horned porcelain crabs, broad clawed porcelain crabs, hermit crabs and squat lobsters were all in abundance!

The water clarity was amazing at the edge of the eel grass beds (which we were careful not to walk on!)
And living among seaweeds were found yet more stalked jellyfish Lecernaryopsis cruxmelitensis.
David Fenwick found an incredibly rare double headed stalked jellyfish.A Siamese twin version of the Maltese cross species.

Thanks to all the volunteers who came along - most got the chance to see a stalked jellyfish and all enjoyed exploring a fantastic shore.

Rare to see a s legged cushion starfish! 

A beautiful gem anemone found by Tim Caulfield

Water clarity in the shallows around the edge of the eel grass bed was astoundingly good 

A five bearded rockling with a very unusual forked barbel

A beautiful day on the Shore

Zoe at the shorelab

Red sponge found in an upper shore pool

Stalked Jellyfish Bonanza at Mounts Bay

Despite the terrible weather that Cornwall suffered this winter the shore at Marazion was extremely biodiverse for our Shoresearch survey day last Saturday!

A total of 15 volunteers turned out and all were treated to sightings of the nationally rare Stalked jellyfish that are a Feature of conservation interest for this site!  Local naturalists David Fenwick and Dr Paul Gainey joined us in exploring the lower shore shallow eel grass lagoon to the East of the Causeway to St Michaels Mount and straight away we were recording rare stalked jellies.



In total we made:
9 records of Haliclistus octoradiatus -  (5 in the lower shore lagoon and 4 in upper shore pools).
1 record of Leucernariopsis campanulata
1 record of Craterlophus convolvulus 
and 15 records of Leucernariopsis cruxmelitensis

In the past week David has recorded many more Stalked jellies so we now have definite proof that this area is important for these rare protected species. In fact numbers have been so large that it has been described as a bloom! Why this has occurred is not clear and more research needs to be carried out to investigate such rare population explosions.

Maltese Cross Stalked Jellyfish Leucernariopsis cruxmelitensis photo by Matt Slater

Using a hand held GPS Jason Birt was able to record the shore-ward boundary of two large eel grass beds - again a feature of Conservation interest to the site. We discussed with Laurence Smith who runs a stand up paddle board school at Marazion the possibility of returning when the weather is good to map the outer extent of the beds by snorkelling and from paddle boards. It sounds like a great idea - please get in touch if you would be interested in helping out with that!

Long horned porcelain crab magnified! 

Shoresearchers surveying an eel grass filled lagoon

Portrait of a worm pipefish

Generally the level of biodiversity in the site was very high, we recorded lots of Sea hares among the eel grass, and every boulder you looked beneath was home to porcelain crabs, both long horned and broad clawed, Montagues crabs and worm pipefish!

H. octoradiatus by Matt Slater - note the spherical primary tentacles
and the more randomly placed spherical nematocysts

After surveying the lower shore eel grass beds we moved up to a high shore site near the village of Marazion and again found lots of stalked jellys living in pools often attached to wire weed Sargassum muticum. A total of 4 more Haliclistus octoradiatus were found there!

A fantastic day out - and thanks to all of you for turning up!

Looking forward to seeing you over Easter at our next survey on 16th April again at Marazion!

Cheers


Matt