Nudibranches

We're on the hunt for sea slugs!

We have only ever seen one - it was at Scalby Mills earlier this year and it was a Sea Lemon (common name). No disrespect or anything, but it is the most boring sea slug you would ever come across, and most common.

Happily, there are other species that are present (supposedly) here. One of them is called an orange- clubbed sea slug (pictured), named after the 'clubs' on its back.

Typically, sea slugs are found feeding on bryozoans (they are sea mats which often encrust rocks and algae fronds at low tides) or other algae (eg Cladophora spp.)

We plan a visit to Scalby during next months nighttime low tides (13th & 14th December). Wish us luck!

Steve

**Picture taken from MarLin**

A successful couple of nights

When I say successful, I mena really, really successful. So successful in fact that we caught the most species in a single session since well....never!

We found two new species present at Holbeck - a Bristly (or Hairy) Crab (pictured), and a Two-Spot Goby. Both are welcome additions to our database, and hopefully we'll be seeing more of them next month :)

To see the full list of species found, go to this thread (no login required)...here

A worthwhile trip!

Next up, there are two nice low tides in December worth attending - just before we go back for Xmas. There are...

Saturday 13th December: Low Tide 0.93m 22:29 GMT
Sunday 14th December:

Low Tide 0.83m

23:20 GMT

Then we have some exciting tides in January and February 2009 to look forward to :)

Steve

Night Rockpooling

I have been looking forward to this all week!

On Friday night we will embark on our first night rockpooling session of the autumn/winter months.

The tide is at its lowest at 23:02 when it dips down to 0.95m, which incidentally 2cm lower than the night we found the huge Edible Sea Urchin - so we have high hopes.

The following Saturday morning harbours a low tide of 1.08m at 11:26 and then if we fancy it, another night low tide of 0.95m is there for us to take advantage of at 23:49 Saturday night.

Personally, I will be looking amongst the kelp holdfasts in search of some smaller orgnaisms such as sea spiders, and an uncommon slender spider crab :)

There is always potential for a lobster at these tide levels, and of course anything unexpected is a bonus!

I will post a new entry after each session this weekend.

Steve

Photo Competition

Hi all, I bring good news!

Yesterday we entered 6 pictures into the Warcs Bulletin photo competition, and we won 3rd place for our photo of a Marbled White butterfly (see title photo ^^)

We won £5 for our achievement, which just about covers the cost of printing out the photos, so in total we made a profit of £1.61!

Of course, it isn't about the money, we are just pleased that the photo placed highly. It got 18 votes, and the Peacock butterfly also got 5 votes :)

The voters are knowledgeable about their butterfly species, so it snesnible to assume that the rarer Marbled White stood a decent chance :)

On a rockpooling note, we take a trip down to Holbeck next weekend for our first night rockpooling session of the season! Last year we managed to find Judi Dench (our 16cm wide Edible Sea Urchin, so expectations are high!

Next Rockpooling session: Friday 14th November 2008: Low tide 0.94m @ 11:30pm approx

Steve