Scilly, Part II

Sunday 3rd - marine

In the afternoon we had our first go at rockpooling. We made our way over the large cobbles to the edge of the tide, which it turned out later was not the best tactic we could have pursued - the rock pools higher up the shore were more accessible and better. It wasn't the best time of the year by far, and the low tides were quite high. This was going to be the lowest of the week, though. We still had some fun things.

The Thongweed was much in evidence, both with thongs and as buttons

There were superabundant Montagu's Crabs in amongst the Green Shore and Broad-clawed Porcelain crabs. We didn't see any other crabs - not even a single hermit, though these are apparently on the eelgrass beds. Many of the Monty's had spawn.

There were a few new seaweeds, including Eyelash Weed.

And a couple of my most anticipated species - Snakelocks Anemone and Cushion Star. 

Another anticipated species, and one of my favourites, was Lightbulb Sea Squirt.

All in all, not a bad start. There were a lot of other species we might have hoped for, but there was no way we were going to get big returns on such a high tide. Another metre might have made a lot of difference, and we did find another couple of things later in the week. I wouldn't mind giving Scilly rock pooling another bash at a different time of year - and with more knowledge.