Friday was the ideal day for a Cornish rockpool ramble with warm weather and calm conditions. Over a hundred people joined the Looe Marine Conservation Group rockpool event and I’m sure other rockpooling sessions around the Cornwall were similarly well attended. (Here’s a list of what’s on this summer).
There are lots of benefits to having a summer birthday; the sun usually shines, the rock pools shimmer and it’s just about warm enough to put my snorkel on and jump in. The beach has lots of presents in store for me today, including a huge greater pipefish, a cousin of the sea horse, and a rare sea slug. No unwrapping required.
It’s holiday season , but a little planning and some walking is all that is needed to find a peaceful cove. We set off to Port Nadler in perfect, calm conditions loaded with wetsuits, buckets and an ample picnic.
Under a rock I spot what I think is a very large anemone, but it looks odd. I’m still trying to puzzle it out when it crawls away, unfurling long ear-like tentacles from its head. It’s a sea hare but more bulky than the ones I normally see (Aplysia punctata).
As it oozes towards me across the rock I’m struck by its face, more like a hippo than a hare with wide flapping ears and a broad snout. Very occasionally larger sea hares, Aplysia depilans, have been found around the southern shores of the UK, and I begin to wonder.
I contact experts who have seen them before and they confirm it is a juvenile Aplysia deplians – a rare find and a species I’ve never seen before. Happy birthday to me!
It’s still cold for snorkelling and I only last about a quarter of an hour before my teeth start to chatter, but it’s worth it. After several minutes of seeing nothing but kelp, silt and the occasional two-spot goby, a long snake-like body catches my eye. It’s the unmistakeable shape of a greater pipefish (Syngnathus acus).
These fish grow to about arm length and have a hexagonal cross-section. This one hardly moves, relying on camouflage for defence, its long nose stretching out over the sand.
I drift back into shore, and find a compass jellyfish (Chrysaora hysoscella) stranded in the shallows. It takes its name from the beautiful markings on its back, but I don’t go too close – sea nettle is its other common name.
Back on the shore, I huddle on the sand, wrapped in jumpers and towels, shivering and eating cake. Birthdays don’t get any better than this.
Sometimes everything’s just meant to be. This is one of those times.
It’s a random get-together; my Twitter friend Nanny Pat from Bosinver Farm Cottages has suggested we meet with her family and friends to explore a special beach that her son loves. Sounds good to me!
The sun is struggling through the clouds as we all descend from Mawnan towards the glittering shore. We are nine adults, six children, one dog, some huge buckets and a promisingly enormous picnic bag that Nanny Pat has packed for us.
We waste no time and strike out across the slippery rocks. These are serious rock poolers. I am, as other half puts it, “among my people”.
We set to and the finds flood in. There are fish eggs everywhere, some are just starting to develop like these clingfish eggs.
Others are nearly ready to swim away, eyes jammed against their transparent egg cases, tails squished around them.
Best of all, I’m baffled by some of the creatures we find.
First there’s a transparent disk of jelly a centimetre across. I scoop it up in a tub and peer at it until I go cross-eyed. It shows no sign of life, but I’m sure it is an animal. All around its rim are mauve dots and a thin purple cross hangs across its centre.
I rule out all the UK jellyfish and it’s the wrong shape for a sea gooseberry. When I take a photo of it in the water, my camera shows some short tentacles, invisible to the naked eye.
Having since consulted the experts, it looks to be the medusa (jelly) stage in the lifecycle of some sort of hydroid or sea fir.
I’m distracted from my observations by some excited shouts and squeals. “Quick, we’ve found a shark!” one of the adults calls.
The children are gathering around the edge of a pool and there in some shallow seaweed, a dogfish (small spotted catshark – scyliorhinus canicula) lies stranded.
The animal is calm despite being out of the water and surrounded by eager kids. We take a minute to take photos. Some of the children tentatively touch its sandpaper-rough skin and Cornish Rock Pools junior sluices it with water in an effort to keep it happy.
The dads rush in for the privilege of relocating our shark to a deeper pool, where it lurks as we carry on our rockpooling.
One of the finds, a little fish catches my eye. When I first see its red body and dark head, I think it could be a black-faced blenny. The shape doesn’t seem right though. After much staring, I conclude it’s probably a scorpion fish. In my photos the spines on its face can be seen more clearly, confirming that it’s the smallest specimen of this species I’ve ever seen.
The picnic is perfect in every way. Some of the children huddle together with their sandwiches on top of a tall rock. The smaller kids play in the sand and shower some into the olives, but no one cares.
The tide has moved in but there’s still time for some last-ditch rock pooling to the east of the beach. One of the boys is desperate to find and eel and his determination pays off. He locates a good-sized common eel under a rock, but it slithers into a crevice, evading capture.
There is no shortage of crabs here and we find pairs of lemon-yellow berthella plumula sea slugs clinging to the underside of the rocks. I’m told there are giant gobies around and it’s not long before one of the dads sends up a triumphant cry. “It’s a giant.”
We all look closely. I’ve seen some big rock gobies and I know they can be hard to tell apart from the rarer giant goby. This one looks like it could be the real thing. It’s large, at least 17cm, and has the fat-lipped face and salt and pepper colouring of a giant goby.
I take photos of the sucker fin on its belly and hope we’ll be able to get a definitive answer from the experts. The giant goby has a detatched lobe at the front of its sucker fin which the rock goby doesn’t have…apparently.
As we release the goby into the pool where we found it, the children spot their granddad walking onto the beach. He’s arrived just as the tide overtakes the last pools and he invites the kids to join him for a spot of skimming.
It’s the first time I’ve been to this beach. I think I’ll be back. Some things are indeed meant to be.
I am a lucky woman. Not only is my other-half proud to be seen in public with me when I’m wearing my oh-so-flattering waders, but he’s even prepared to spend his birthday on the shore.
He says he understands; tides like this don’t come up every day. In fact, watching him lifting stones and kneeling to take photos, I start to suspect he’s becoming as obsessed as I am.
The tide is already out so far that (more…)
This weekend will be a rockpool marathon. I’ll be out in my splendidly flattering waders crawling among kelp and tearing my fingers apart on barnacles and keel worms, making the most of the exceptional spring tides.
In preparation I take a leisurely pootle to my local beach, Plaidy. High pressure and calm seas mean this is already a great tide – it will drop another half-metre by Saturday.
Cornish Rockpools junior is digging sea defences, rescuing the baby (more…)
Spring is a wonderful time of year in the Cornish rock pools, although like all things British, it’s hard to predict when it will arrive.
This time of year, the fish are moving inshore to lay their eggs. In many common shore species, the male stays close by, protecting the eggs until the baby fish hatch. Blennies, in particular, are frequently found hiding among the rocks, close to their precious broods.
Many crabs too are ‘in berry’, tucking their clutches of eggs (more…)
I’m not cut out for rockpooling in a northerly wind in February. My hands are too frozen to hold my battered old camera steady, but nothing is going to make me miss this tide. It’s so low that the seagrass at Hannafore is high and dry and a shark is lurking in shin-deep water, but I haven’t seen that yet.
There are fish, crabs, worms and brittle stars in droves (more…)
Fish often become trapped in the shallows during exceptionally low tides, even big fish like mullet and wrasse, but it’s the first time I’ve met an adult shark on a rockpooling trip.
It’s been a cold but productive afternoon and I’m about to head home to defrost my painfully frozen fingers when a movement in the kelp around ten metres away grabs my attention. (more…)
Anyone who goes rock pooling regularly will know that it’s addictive. Even when the tide’s creeping up to the top of your wellies and the rain’s flying at you, you see another stone and you have to know what’s under it. It could be something new. (more…)
Cornish Rock Pools 