Rockpool festival back bigger and better
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| • Rockpooling at Beer last year uncovered
some wonderful creatures. |
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| • Is this the real meaning of being star-struck? |
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• The ferocious looking sea scorpion is
actually totally harmless.
Picture: D Walters. |
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| • Hermit crabs are always a rockpool favourite.
Picture: S Sharrock/DBRC. |
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• Dumpy cushion-stars can be found beneath
the rocks at low tide.
Picture: S Sharrock/DBRC. |
By James Chubb
East Devon Education Ranger
East Devon has a truly remarkable stretch of coast, even if the
eponymous BBC series decided to miss us out entirely and attribute
the entire length to Dorset! As I am sure you are all aware, we
are part of the UK’s first natural UNESCO World Heritage Site:
The Jurassic Coast, however I am a bit of a cold fish when it comes
to rocks, and it’s the living natural history which really
appeals to me.
Rockpools are such an exciting place to explore; it’s a magical
experience delving into a really low-water pool, as you never know
quite what you might find. I have led rockpool rambles on the same
area of beach year-in, year-out for three years now, and something
new keeps cropping up to get the pulse racing.
But, perhaps the most special thing about rockpools is the fact
that I have yet to meet anyone who is not in some way moved, interested
or excited about exploring this window into the underwater world.
Perhaps because it is a way of glimpsing part of our planet that
is out of reach to so many of us, I’m not certain, but everyone
gets hooked on rockpools.
Last year, in the depths of February, I was desperately searching
for a legitimate way of spending all of August out of the office,
enjoying the best of East Devon’s wildlife. I came to the conclusion
that if I couldn’t drag everyone off the beach to come and
look for clouded yellow butterflies, and migrant hawker dragonflies
on Seaton Marshes, I would go to them and enjoy a spot of rockpooling.
And so the East Devon Rockpooling Festival was conceived. It was
met with such unanimous approval that this year it’s back,
bigger and better than before, with more events, more partnership
organisations involved and more chance to get a close up encounter
of our marine wildlife with the local experts.
Last year’s highlight for me came at Jacob’s Ladder beach
in Sidmouth, which is why I’ve chosen this beach to launch
the East Devon Coastal Festival on August 6 this year.
After nearly an hour of rockpooling, we had found an average haul
of the usual rockpool suspects. A fairly hefty velvet swimmer crab
was perhaps the least friendly and most stunning find of the day,
but it was about to be trumped. Twice!
“James! I’ve found a squid,” came the call from a
young boy, dipping a net with his father a few metres away. Now
you may think this a little harsh, perhaps even cynical of me, but
inwardly I let out a little sigh. Fat chance of that I thought and
went over smiling, to rectify the mistake.
“What have you found?” I enquired, looking into the tiny
shrimping net.
To my shock, amazement, wonder and bewilderment, at the bottom of
this little pink plastic net sat a frightfully disgruntled little
cuttle. I uttered a few mild expletives and ran with the net to
the nearest white tray, boy and father in tow, and placed the prize
gently in the tray. This was not a small cuttlefish, but a different
species known as a little cuttle. The last time I had seen one of
these mesmeric molluscs was on a marine zoology unit of my degree
in the north west of Scotland.
The little dumpy creature with two huge emerald eyes flashed translucent
one second, jet black the next and puffed a squirt of ink when my
investigative finger got too close. It had everyone crowded round
the tray spellbound. Another father and son duo arrived and asked
what the commotion was all about, holding out their shrimping net.
Plop! Another little cuttle was added to the tray. It never rains,
but it pours!
It’s not always the one-in-a-million find that makes the day.
Watching a pair of hermaphrodite sea hares produce two fertile strings
of eggcases from each end, looking like a green jelly spurting party
string, is a weird and wonderful sight.
Short-spined sea scorpions and prickly sea urchins lurk beneath
the overhangs of rockpools, where only a delicately searching hand
will find them. And there’s always the chance of finding my
second favourite coastal creature (after the little cuttle) the
squat lobster, in a pool at the lowest point of the tide.
So you can never predict what may happen to be left stranded in
the pools at low water, which is why this year I have teamed up
with the Devon Biodiversity Records Centre at the Devon Wildlife
Trust, to keep records of the species found during the festival.
The local record centre is hungry for information about wildlife
found in the county and many people, myself included until recently,
don’t realise that the species they find when on the beach
represent really useful data for the county. The Marine Officer
at the DBRC is putting together a recording sheet for people to
fill in, and will be leading a whale and dolphin watch later in
the month at Beer Head. For more information about that, or any
other event in the Coastal Festival contact the Countryside Service
at East Devon District Council on (01395) 517557.
As well as some scintillating rockpooling, the launch event on August
6 will also have storytellers, beach artists making giant sand sculptures
and clay paintings, geologists, marine zoologists and a host of
others to help make your coastal exploration fun, safe and exciting.
• James Chubb is East Devon District Council’s Education
Ranger.
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