Equinoctial Excitement

The lowest tides of the year happened over the last two days, and I hit the shore on both days. Neil and I jumped into Stephen's car and headed up to Staffin Bay on the first day. Neil is a self-confessed rockpool nutjob whereas Stephen is relatively new to marine life, being more of a serious botanist than a seashore botherer. Neil assured us that we would be sheltered from the strong SW winds, this being on the northeast coast, but somehow we were tricked. Rounding a bend we were hit full-on by some seriously strong gusts which, given that we were clambering across exceptionally slippery kelp draped over boulders, was not precisely welcomed! At least it wasn't a cold wind, that would probably have seen us throw in the towel and try elsewhere.

Some sort of shelled creatures moving slowly across the kelp

Staffin Bay was hard work, with zero chance of catching any fish amongst the embedded boulders but with a high chance of falling over. Stephen took a slo-mo tumble and got wet, I knelt in the sea and filled a welly full of water whilst Neil, as per usual, seemed to stay upright and dry throughout. 

There were huge quantities of Corallina officinalis in the shallower pools

The largest Lacuna vincta Banded Chink Shell any of us have ever seen

One of two Asterina phyllactica found under a rock

Quite a few Cellepora pumicosa, an encrusting bryozoan, on rocks

The marine flatworm Leptoplana tremellaris. The black dots are its eyes

It's always lovely to find an Orange-clubbed Sea-slug Limacia clavigera

Codium tomentosum (I checked the utricles beneath a microscope to confirm)

I came away from Staffin with a mere fifty or so species listed in my notebook, plus one very wet sock. Stephen wasn't able to join us the following day which was a real pity because it was much, much better!

Day two was spent at beautiful Ord down on the Sleat Peninsular. I've never been to this particular coral beach before, but I certainly intend to visit again when the tides are sufficiently low. To say I was blown away (and not by the wind this time) would be an understatement. So blown away that I didn't take a single habitat shot! Here's one I pinched off the internet

We entered far left, skirted through the shallows and crossed the sandbar to reach the island

The whole of the bay is covered in a deep layer of maerl, which is a type of coralline algae. Maerl forms knobbly lego-sized nodules and is a deep pinky-purple colour when alive. It's a strange sensation walking across deep beds of maerl, you sink into it a little way and it makes crunching sounds as you pass through. These maerl beds are home to a frankly staggering array of species, and are particularly rich in young bivalves, snails and worms which bury themselves deep within it. 

Maerl bed, along with a couple of empty mollusc shells

There are at least three species of coralline algae that form maerl beds in Skye's waters. Apparently they are difficult to get to species, certainly I don't have any of them listed on my PSL. I'll need to research how to go about getting them to species, I really ought to at least make an attempt at identifying one of them! Maerl typically grows at a rate of less than 1mm per year and many nodules will be well over 100 years old before they die. 

Edit: I've just been made aware of this paper. Maybe it'll still be a while before I get to grips with maerl ID after all 

The seabed here is essentially a huge flat plateau, few seaweeds have colonised the open water and the impression I had was that to a marine creature it would be akin to an underwater savannah or prairie, vast open spaces stretching right out to the distant horizon. The only interruption being the rolling hill of the raised sandbar which Neil and I planned to utilise as a causeway to the island. We'd met a local lady who told us that the sandbar had shifted a little to the north in recent years and we'd be lucky to have much more than five minutes on the island before having to return before our route back was submerged once more. Neil seemed unfazed, so I wasn't overly concerned we'd be stranded overnight. Fool that I am...

We found some Eelgrass patches and, as per usual, I stopped and stared into the swaying blades in search of seahorses. One day I'll find one, but today was not that day. I did note plenty of Rhodophysema georgei, an epiphytic red weed which grows along the edge of Eelgrass blades. You can see a bit of it in this image below, the main object of which is the sea squirt Diplosoma listerianum which has grown around an Eelgrass blade.

Diplosoma listerianum. Note the reddish Rhodophysema georgei lining the Eelgrass blades

We did pot up a few bits and bobs that were mostly found on the underside of boulders at the edge of the bay, plus quite a few fish including several each of Butterfish, Shore Rockling and Five-bearded Rockling, two Long-spined Sea Scorpions plus a Worm Pipefish which I missed. 

Both of these sea-slugs are the rather hefty Aeolidia filomenae

Risso's Crab Xantho pilipes with its hairy hindlegs and rear margins of the carapace

Pretty soon we were approaching the freshly emerged sandbar. The water was halfway up our wellies as we crossed to it. We took a side each and, in water barely six inches deep, walked the length of it until we reached the island. Two things quickly struck me, there were a lot of Common Starfish strewn across the mearl bed and they were mostly coloured some kind of shade of blue. 

One that most certainly was not some shade of blue was this little stunner. I recognised it immediately from an illustration in one of my books, a species that I've never seen before and it did not disappoint! 

The Sand Star Astropecten iregularis. What an absolute beauty!!

I have to admit, it was high and dry and caked in debris when first spotted, so I washed it and popped it back into deeper water before taking this pic. I mean it's a lifer, it needs to look the part! What was almost comical was the way it stayed rigidly flat throughout the whole process of being picked up and sluiced in the water. Flat like a frozen fritter! But what a fritter at that, a beautiful animal. I'm proper stoked to have finally seen a Sand Star for myself. 

Neil was calling to me, something about burrowing anemones. I looked down and within a few more feet saw the unmistakeable mop of tentacles of a burrowing anemone underfoot. Then another. And another! I've only ever seen about three Burrowing Anemones before, yet here I was standing in a forest of them! I may have become a little enamoured of them, these are just a handful of the images I took! None have been altered, these are all straight off the card. Just look at the variation in colours and patterns! Note also the fine tentacles in the mouth area, the Sarlacc ain't got nothing on these guys! 

Being whooshed around in the slow current

Pure white row of outer tentacles with darker inners

Variegated dark outer tentacles, pale creamy/white inners

I love this pic! Just look at the expansive wide open 'prairie' scene behind it!

Eventually we arrived at the island where several mounds of stones (mountains on the savannah as I called them) revealed large numbers of Ascidia mentula attached to the hard surfaces. Different habitats mean different inhabitants. I took a few pics but they're mostly a bit crap

These were rather sizeable. I doubt I'd be able to fit two of them on my open palm

It was around about this point in time that Neil suddenly announced "We need to go. We need to go right now" and marched off towards his rucksack laying on the beach. Neil was a teacher for forty years (to the day!) and this was the first time I'd heard those forty years of authority used in his tone of voice. It absolutely brooked no argument whatsoever. I looked at the sand bar and noticed that some of it was missing. Shit. I grabbed my rucksack, made sure it was zipped up tight, checked I had my notebook, camera, handlens and glasses in my pockets and started to run! A glance backwards and I saw Neil was also running just behind me. We didn't stop until the sand ran out. The beach was maybe 100ft ahead of us, a fast running channel between it and us. I figured we were about to get wet. My phone and keys were already out of my trousers and safely on my back inside the rucksack. My camera and handlens were waterproof anyway. My notebook was my main concern. Holding my coat bottoms aloft, I waded into the water on tiptoes in my wellies, wondering how far I would make it before the inevitable happened. Well, somehow, I made it! Neil had chosen an even better route and I don't think the sea came up any closer than two inches from the tops of his wellies! "Bloody hell, we could have stayed out there for easily another 35 seconds" I quipped, much to Neil's amusement. We'd managed a lot longer than the five minutes the lady had reckoned we'd have. But yeah, a couple minutes more and we'd have been wading into thigh deep water I reckon. This happened to me on the north Norfolk coast one winter's day many years ago. I think I was at Holkham watching Shorelarks or maybe Snow Buntings. Anyway, I was on a raised dune in the middle of a flat beach when I looked up to find I'd been cut off from the land. I splashed through the shallows but reached a deeper channel where I had no real choice but to strip off my boots, socks and trousers and wade across. In the middle of winter in Norfolk! I'm surprised I didn't get frostbite somewhere I don't ever want to get frostbite, but I survived. Today's little panic at being cut off was precisely that, just a little panic and there was never any danger involved. The perfect end to a wonderfully memorable day. Those Burrowing Anemones are something else, if you've never seen one do try and make time for them someday, they're just great. Maybe even better than a Sand Star. 

No need to warm me Cockles by the fire this time

Music time folks. I'm typically into various genres and flavours of rock or metal, but tonight I'm feeling energised so have some of this. As ever, hope you enjoy