Rockpooling on the Scillies

Day 6 (Thursday 15th October)

Having now had a taste of the rockpools on Scilly, Tiny and The Ghost were positively champing at the bit for more watery shenanigans. The tides were improving daily, culminating in a seriously low tide on Saturday morning, which was the day we were due to depart these fabulous isles.

The Ghost had been performing early morning MVL trap inspections every day whilst I slumbered, so far with little of interest to show for it. This morning though, he actually found a halfway decent moth in the trap and kindly whacked it in a pot, awaiting my inspection.

The Delicate Mythimna vitellina - a southern migrant and suspected breeder

I've only seen The Delicate a couple of times before, once in Dorset and once here on St Marys, so I'm pleased The Ghost potted this up for me to look at. Clearly a bit worn, bashed and less than pristine, I agree, but he's a good fella really...

We struck out for the rockpools of Porthcressa Bay, a site where I've previously found Montagu's Blenny, a fish that was high up on Tiny's Fish Hitlist. We followed the tide out whereupon Tiny quickly realised that one of his wellies leaked and that kneeling in the sea was a great way to fill the one that wasn't. Haha, sucks to be him! TinyWetFeet didn't care, he was having far too much fun chasing fish with his net.

Montagu's Blenny! Sorted, can we go home now?

Well the Montagu's Blenny certainly didn't take too long to fall, in fact we quickly found several more in the smaller rockpools. Note the single feathery 'tentacle thing' on it's forehead, a diagnostic feature of this species. Tiny was happy, I think it was a new fish for Ghostie too. But could we find any other fish amongst the weed and pools? Hell yeah, we certainly could!

Mostly Rock Gobies, they were pretty common beneath rocks amongst the weed

I'm pretty confident the orange one is a Small-headed Clingfish

And moderately happy the mottled one is Common Goby. Should have checked it properly!

Big bad bruiser of a Rock Goby - up close and personal

Five-bearded Rockling - check out the tall spine in front of the first dorsal fin

Better view of the five barbels. The first dorsal was constantly quivering very rapidly

We uncovered quite a few Worm Pipefish and a Shanny, plus some small wrasse of an unknown species, but failed to find Giant Goby, which should occur in rockpools quite high up the beach, especially in areas with freshwater run-off. We had all of that, and plenty of gung-ho-itty when it came to chasing down fish in the weed, but sadly Giant Goby eluded us this time. We still had time, we'd try elsewhere later. Giant Goby would be a lifer for all of us, we wanted it baaaaad.

Obviously, there's a lot more to rock-pooling than just finding fish. We did pretty bloody amazing for crabs and anemones, but the most exciting find, for the boys at least, came near the end of our session in the rockpools. One pool high up the shore was full of green Ulva, and attached to several of these were Tiny's first ever stalked jellyfish. You can probably imagine his tiny squeals of delight when he clapped eyes on this

This is Calvadosia campanulata, a widespread species of stalked jellyfish. As is hinted in the name, stalked jellyfish don't swim around like most jellyfish do, they remain attached to pieces of weed and are generally found in shallow waters and rockpools, unlike their pelagic cousins which tend to die rather quickly if stuck in a rockpool. If you look closely at the semi-transparent edges to this jelly, you'll be able to see many tiny orange dots embedded in the 'skin'. These are known as papillations and, combined with features on the arms, identify the species for us. 

The following two images are of a different individual of the same species. You can, at a push, discern the papillations plus the patterning and distribution of the white stinging nematocysts on the inside of the bell and arms also help to distinguish this as a second Calvadosia campanulata. They're pretty cool creatures!

No stalked jellyfish were needlessly uprooted during this photo session

I'll just pad the next bit out with a bunch of shots of some other stuff we found on the shore that day.

Painted Topshell - we found just two or three of these 

The Star Ascidian Botryllus schlosseri on a Serrated Wrack blade

Variation on a theme - more Botryllus schlosseri this time growing over an encrusting bryozoan

Turbicellepora magnicosta aka the Orange Peel Bryozoan - quite common on rocks here

After we'd been pushed off the beach by the incoming tide, we decided to head cross-country in search of some plants we'd yet to see. This time around, there was even a lifer plant for me! So we headed to Rocky Hill, paused for Tiny to admire his first House Holly Fern, then wandered up the rough track keeping an eye open for insects on the Atlantic Ivy blossom and birds in the trees as we ambled towards our lifer plant. It's a lovely track and botanical highlights included German-ivy, Kangaroo Fern and Bear's Breech. 

I think it's fair to say that Ivy Bee has successfully colonised St Marys. We saw hundreds!

I was busy swiping and potting flies from the Ivy blossom (rampant suppressor that I am...) whilst Tiny and The Ghost marched on ahead. I collected seven or eight Pollenia, a genus of flies with crinkly golden hair on their thorax. Microscopic examination is required to differentiate the species that occur in Britain, but Pollenia rudis is the  bog standard, dirt common one. I was quietly confident I'd find a different Pollenia down here. Sod's Law, they were all Pollenia rudis. 

I finally caught up with The Ghost and Tiny, patiently waiting for me at the appointed grid reference for our lifer plant. Little did I suspect they'd later massively grip me off with a plant I'd unwittingly walked past. To be fair, they didn't know it either at the time, but grip me off they surely did. Anyway, back to our target plant - Angular Sea Fig. We had the griddie from the Scilly Flora. We knew it grew on walls. There was only one wall here, rather unfortunately completely covered in Pale Dewplant. I climbed some steps to check the back of the wall - nada. The owner of the farm suddenly appeared to ask if he could help in any way as he'd been watching me mill across his wall for the past ten minutes. I explained we were after a plant, which should be on this wall, but suspected it had been lost beneath the sprawling mass of Pale Dewplant. "Is that what this stuff is?" he asked me. "I planted that about four years ago and it's a right thug now innit" he said. Arse, our lifer was somewhere under that, doubtless killed off two or three years back. I looked at the bench built into the base of the wall and sighed. I've sat on that very bench several times over the years, doubtless within inches of Angular Sea Fig the whole time. I've probably gazed at it and figured it was just a small Hottentot Fig. What a clueless twat.

Schizostylis coccinea merrily growing along the track across Rocky Hills

A bit disappointed that our 'dead cert' lifer was no more, we cut cross-country towards a Barred Warbler which Tiny was rather keen to tick. Somehow, we took an extensively circuitous route via Holy Vale cottages (great to bump into Martin Goodey again!), then across to Newford Duckpond where we admired the somewhat underwhelming patch of Cornish Moneywort (and I forgot to point out that the big trees both here and at Holy Vale are Dutch Elm, much to The Ghost's consternation as he needs it as a lifer). Pale Gallingale has really taken a hold around the duckpond and adjacent fields, I can't say I remember it being here when I lived on Scillies in 2016. I knew a great shortcut to Watermill Cove, site of the Barred Warbler, but went a bit wrong and we ended up hitting the coast at Innisidgen! Oh well, the walk down to Watermill Cove was very pleasant. We found a Firecrest, had high flying Peregrine, Kestrel and Sparrowhawk all within moments of each other and the track led us through a grove of Hedge Ragwort with Altar Lily growing in the shade, the latter both being lifers for the boys. No sign of the Barred Warbler, despite Tiny doing his utmost to string a couple of Robins that were flicking about in the hedges.    

We took a slow wander back into town, detouring to spend a bit of time in Higher Moors. Tiny was busily suctioning the heck out of the Greater Tussock Sedge that grow here, yet more spiders and tiny beetles being found in their depths. We bumped into John Martin who asked if we'd seen any Locust Flies on the Ivy up Rocky Hills Lane (dammit, I've always wanted to see one of those and we'd just been there!) He'd photographed one there a few days beforehand, though hadn't realised what it was at the time. He also asked us if we'd seen the Coriander growing up there. Tiny suddenly pulled out his camera, reviewed a few pics and asked, "Is this it with the white petals?" "Ah good, so you all saw it" came John's happy response. Whaaaat??? I hadn't seen it, when the heck did this happen??? Turns out, whilst I was swiping at flies, Tiny and The Ghost were papping pics of a mystery plant that John had just identified for them. Flippin' cheek! I was gripped, gripped like you have no idea. My state of being gripped didn't lessen any when John casually mentioned the drake Mandarin Duck was showing from the hides just a few metres away. Mandarin is an absolute mega for Scilly and I needed it, I ran!!! 

Alas, what with the hides being closed, I just couldn't eyeball enough of the pools and I failed to see the Mandarin. I later learned that it had flown to Porthloo Duckpond (and probably straight over my head whilst I was staring in dismay at the back of Tiny's camera) where it undoubtedly showed marvellously well. Bugger. The only upshot to the entire Higher Moors fiasco was that I saw several large Eels in the channel which Tiny and The Ghost missed. Grumpy much, moi??

Some spider or another, covering its eyes in an effort not to see Coriander or Mandarins...