It sometimes feels like I don’t get out much – either socially or out of the county (Not that it’s a hardship to be in Cornwall!). So, I could barely contain my excitement at having the opportunity to attend the Porcupine Marine Natural History Society Conference in Plymouth. I packed my passport and set forth across the Tamar.

Not only did I mingle with the most amazing bunch of fellow marine wildlife obsessives and hear their latest findings, but the third day of the conference was spent rockpooling at Wembury in South Devon.

 

While the environment at Wembury is similar to my home patch in South East Cornwall, a major difference is that Wembury has a marine centre, staffed by lovely people from the Devon Wildlife Trust. The centre promotes marine conservation and runs all sorts of public and educational events. It also provided a handy indoor base to set up some microscopes and a refreshment station. Luxury after my recent all-weather forays!

Coral, from the Marine Centre, was especially interested to know of any stalked jellyfish finds as past records suggest they used to be more abundant. Having spent the last few months doing stalked jellyfish surveys, I was starting to see them in my sleep, so I was happy to take a look.

Sure enough, there were plenty of stalked jellyfish there, the lower shore pools and gullies were ideal for them. One small clump of seaweed I looked at had six Calvadosia cruxmelitensis on it.

I also found several Craterolophus convolvulus, a species that I see less frequently, although it does occur in my home patch. It looks like it has four twisted coils of rope running down to the centre and has a wide base with a goblet-like profile.

 

This was my first visit to Wembury and I couldn’t bring myself to spend all my time looking at stalked jellyfish, lovely though they are. Having established there were lots of them, I set my mind to other things. 

Spotting a patch of a thick green, finger-like seaweed, Codium. I looked for the wonderful Photosynthesising sea slug (Elysia viridis). All my books say it loves nothing better than this seaweed, but so far I’ve always found them on other things. Today, for the first time, I discovered one that had clearly read the same book as me.

These slugs retain chloroplasts from their food in their bodies, where they carry on photosynthesising to provide the slug with energy or other benefits. This one wasn’t a particularly vivid green, but it’s still pretty amazing to see a solar powered slug. 

Slugs were plentiful elsewhere on the shore too, although I didn’t come across anything particularly unusual. I loved this frilly little pair of Goniodoris nodosa.

This Berthella plumula was exploring the rocks and I saw the spawn of several species of sea slug, so there will soon be babies about!

In February, the only sea hares I could find were a few millimetres long. Today they’re several centimetres long and developing their adult leopard-spot colours.

The small clingfish species were abundant, but I didn’t attempt to check their teeth to see which species they were!

 

This male worm pipefish looked smart in his limpet-hat. He was carrying eggs in his belly-groove so I popped him straight back in his pool. 

As you’d expect, there was no shortage of crabs. This tiny Anapagurus hyndmanni hermit crab caught my eye as it scuttled across the sand. They don’t grow more than about a centimetre long, but their right claw is about as long again and looks it’s wearing a huge white boxing glove. There were several around once I got my eye in.

 

It was wonderful to share finds with other ‘Porcupines’, as members of the society refer to each other. The society is named after HMS Porcupine, although I’m more than a little vague as to why! One unusual discovery was this purple whelk, Raphitoma purpurea.

Inevitably I got carried away on the shore and didn’t think to have lunch until the tide was washing over my boots. By the time I’d gulped down a sandwich and some delicious M&S chocolate tiffin (a perk of having visited Plymouth!), all the Porcupines were assembled in the Marine Centre swapping notes and checking identifications. After a very pleasant half-hour checking other people’s stalked jelly photos and generally enthusing, it was time to cross the border back to Kernow once more.

I might not get to meet up with everyone like this very often – I’m pretty unlikely to make it to the next event in Newcastle for obvious reasons – but it’s inspiring to feel part of a national network of people who are all passionate about the same things as me.

So, a huge thank you goes to all the ‘Porcupines’ for making me welcome at my first conference, to Wembury Marine Centre and to my other half and Cornish Rockpools Junior for being patient with me while I nattered for hours about marine creatures with my new friends.

 Thanks also to you for sharing my adventures. Bonus photos follow for reading this far!

Happy rockpooling everyone!