Bucketful of Jelly

I'm writing this between shifts, so it's gonna be a very short post. Today the chef told me there were a lot of jellyfish in the loch. The housekeeper's niece is helping out today seeing as she's just finished her exams and in need of some money. She looked at the chef, looked at me and said "ooh can we go see them? Can we? I want to catch one!" So we went and had a quick look, saw quite a few Moon Jellies drifting by and decided to come back after the shift had finished to see if we could catch any.

Moon Jellyfish plus a net-wielding grinning weirdo

We managed to pop quite a few jellyfish into a bucket, plus a couple of Sea Gooseberries which are ctenophores rather than true jellyfish, the first I've seen for a couple of years or so. I saw a larger ctenophore swimming against the current (jellyfish generally swim/drift with the current) but it didn't come close enough to be netted. It didn't look quite right for Beroe cucumis, which I've seen before but not for a good few years. I wondered if it was a new species for me and went online to see what the options were. Not many!

After work, I changed into casual clothes and returned with my net and bucket. A short while later and I'd snagged myself a ctenophore, it was another of the one I hadn't seen before. The pics of it in a white bucket were awful, so I tipped it into shallow water, shoved my camera underwater and hoped for the best

This is Bolinopsis infundibulum, aka the Northern Comb-jelly and a lifer for me. 

In life the cilia beat with a gorgeous shimmering colour, seen as greens and purples and partially captured in the third image above. This individual was around 8 or 9cm in length, but they can approach double that size. This is my third species of ctenophore, finding two on the same day (at work!) was decidedly unexpected.

Incoming tide with the hotel's slipway in the background

I have eight minutes until I'm back on shift, but I have tomorrow off work and the weather is meant to be glorious. Stay tuned folks!