Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Pipefish

Braefoot Point with Inchcolm Island behind

 With the tide low yesterday morning I headed for the rocks and rummaged around for an hour or so. I didn't see as much as I was expecting, to be honest, but I did find some very nice Worm Pipefish. At first I found only one, and I wsa excited enough about that. Then under another rock I found 5 all wrapped around each other. Maybe it's mating season.

Worm Pipefish: short upturned nose, no caudal fin

That would have been a result enough , despite the lack of other interesting things, but it also turned out that a very nice paddle-worm was new, too. Earthworms are probably the group I find most boring to deal with (it's mostly counting), but marine worms are spectacular things with their scales, tendrils, etc. Amazingly at 40cm this wasn't the biggest worm of the day! These paddle-worms definitely have a Chinese New Year feel about them, and the body colour on this one was spectacular. Not sure what's the benefit of growing so long. 

Dragon worm

At the end of the day I went to drop this worm back into the water (yes, too long but it was OK), only to discover that there was a mass of exposed seaweed. As the light faded I practically ran around like a maniac. If I was going to find a sea spider in Dalgety Bay surely this was the day?

It wasn't. But I did find another three nice additions - bootlace worm, which is an absurdly long nemertean. I have no idea how long because it was basically in a pile. And the yellow-ringed tunicate Ciona inestinalis. So intent was I on looking for things that  it seems I only took one photo. This is it, and you can see the result of fading light. You can just about see the yellow tips that would be rings when it was fully open.

The third addition was an actual living sea urchin, although since I managed to crush it with the rock before I found it "living" was a temporary situation, sadly. Of course there were many other common things, including 1000s of brittlestars, starfish, crabs (green shore, edible, long-clawed porcelain, great spider) and butterfish, though strangely no other fish was knowingly encountered. I also checked a good few Cuvie holdfasts to see if I could locate a blue-rayed limpet. That also was not to be. I'll definitely be keeping my eye better on the tide tables in future, though.

Bootlace worm