26th Sep 2014 - The Three Musketeers hit Dorset

Had to take a day off work for this one, but I was very much looking forward to today's shenanigans! Graeme Lyons had once again headed westwards and was joining Tony Davis and myself on a daytrip into Dorset. We had plans, hell yeah we did! But first we had to negotiate the bedlam that is Poole in the rush hour. Not cool. Eventually we wormed through the snarls and arrived at our first port of call - a car park north of Stanpit Marsh. We quickly disembarked and headed down towards the marsh, stopping to admire a few plants of Corn Spurrey (Spergula arvensis) and noticed plenty of opaque wiindows on Hedge Bindweed leaves. A quick examination confirmed Tony's initial thought - these were the larvae of Bedellia somnulentella, a small micromoth. I initially thought it was a lifer for me, turns out I've recorded the adult many years ago. Ho hum. Not a great pic, but here's the Corn Spurrey (taken whilst leaning over a fence, hence the awkward angle!

Pressing onwards into the marsh we wandered through the muddy patches, leapt flooded ditches and dodged the copious amounts of dung - all whilst trying to concentrate on finding the diminutive plant we'd come here to see - Mudwort.  Eventually we arrived in 'the zone' and split up, each of us examining the grass and mud with intensity. Fifteen minutes of blank was punctuated by Graeme's yell, "Got it!" We splodged across the field to the edge of a flooded ditch and sure enough there it was, Mudwort (Limosella aquatica). Top marks to Graeme, there wasn't much of it on show, just a few straggly plants. But quite a distinctive pale shade of green and a lovely 'gracefully floppy' form. It was just a tad too far away for my camera to properly focus, and I didn't fancy getting soaked feet this early in the day. Hence this was the best image I could manage

It's a really lovely little plant. Certainly more endearing than the Grey Club-rush (Schoenoplectus tabernaemontani) which was all around us and also new for me. I marvelled at the ease with which the scientific name just fell off Graeme's tongue. I went cross-eyed just trying to remember it.

From this point onwards Graeme has already blogged about the day on his Lyon's Den site. You can read his version at http://analternativenaturalhistoryofsussex.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/jurassic-carp.html Generally his pics are a lot better than mine but you get a lot more waffle with my version. Your call really...

Happy with the start of our day we jumped back into Tony's car and headed off to today's main attraction - the Fine Foundation Marine Centre at Kimmeridge Bay, slap bang in the middle of a brilliant rockpooling area. We'd timed it so that we'd arrive ahead of low tide, then follow the sea out to its lowest point before retreating back upshore as the tide came in again. We pulled up in the carpark and jumped out the car, whereupon Graeme stopped dead in his tracks, pointed west and said, "what on earth's THAT???" I looked across the bay at the direction his arm was pointing and smiled,  "What, that? That's Portland" I replied. "Oooh" he thoughtfully murmured. Welcome to The Jurassic Coast, Mr Lyons, I thought. You're gonna love it here. And he did too!

The tide was still pretty high so we headed straight to the Marine Centre to introduce ourselves and pick up as many hints and tips as we could. Graeme had already notified the centre that we were visiting, so they were expecting us. Somehow, by the time we'd finished looking through the aquaria, chatting to the staff and watching videos, the tide was already on the turn. We hastened to the path and started our descent across the large angular blocks. One interesting fact we'd discovered from the staff is that Kimmeridge Bay enjoys a double low-tide whereby the water goes out, comes in a tad, then goes out again! Cool, that meant we'd easily have 5 or 6 hours fun finding goodies, maybe more! Tompot Blenny was Graeme's target fish for the day (it's all about the fish, remember. Gotta beat that Doctor Evil Comont...) 

Somewhat surprisingly, Tony didn't really get properly into the swing of things. When we quizzed him about his lack of childlike enthusiasm he replied, "it's tricky to get massively enthused about stuff you know very little about. What the heck is an ascidian, a tunicate, these weird things whirring around in the bottom of the tub?" Fairplay, I could see where he was coming from. "It's all so bloody alien, isn't it?" he continued. Well yeah, I guess so. But that wasn't gonna stop me finding as much weird shizzle as I could. And Graeme was like a man possessed, running along the channels scooping out fish at frighteningly regular intervals. "Yet another Shanny, where's all the gobies at?" he regularly cried at us. He looked demented, rushing through the weed with his net, up the channels, pirouetting on the spot as he spied movement beneath the surface. But, to be fair, he was certainly producing the goods! "Got a clingfish!" came his cry. We headed his way to check it out. Already in the tub, we peered in and came face to face with a lovely brown Shore (or Cornish) Clingfish (Lepadogaster lepadogaster) which was new for Graeme and Tony, I'd seen them before. In Cornwall, oddly enough. The fish soon came through think and fast. "Got a huge goby!!" was the next exclamation from Graeme. "Two!" We scampered across and sure enough there in the tub were a couple of (relatively) huge gobies. The pale tip to the dorsals and dark overall colouration matched those in the centre's aquaria. These were Rock Goby (Gobius paganellus) and a real monster in it's family. Another lifer for Graeme and Tony, I'd seen them before, in Cornwall. Dammit, what was going on here? Here's a pic taken after they'd paled-up in the tub. They were much darker brown when first netted, you can just about make out the paler tops to the dorsals.

Most of the fish we were catching were Shanny (Lipophrys pholis) and we must have caught many dozens of them whilst on site. In fact they were nuisance value because you had to catch it just in case it was something else! Of all the Shannies I caught only one was in fact something else - a Long-spined Sea Scorpion (Taurulus bubalis) which was a lifer for Tony and the only one we saw all day. I didn't get a pic of the Sea Scorpion, but here's one of a Shanny. Seeing as they rasp barnacles off of rocks maybe I ought to have been a bit more careful where I put my fingers?

We were picking up smaller stuff too, various inverts in the tub included the marine isopod Idotea baltica (yet another tick for Tony and Graeme that I didn't need...) whilst the rockpools provided various goodies such as Blue-rayed Limpet (Patella pellucida), Snakelocks Anemone (Anemonia viridis), various topshells and whelks, Beadlet Anemone (Actinia equina) and the pair of gorgeous Gem Anemones (Aluactinia verrucosa) shown below. I didn't realise that Gem Anemone would be new for Graeme else I'd have called him over. Anyway, he was having such fun chasing fish up and down the channels....thankfully I finally found him some more once I knew he needed them. Phew!

I took this pic by placing my 10x handlens in front of the camera, hence the weird distortion. Plus they were underwater! Pretty stunning up close.

Back to the fish. I was determined to see at least one new species today. It wasn't just Graeme who was keen to see new species! It didn't take long, Graeme and then Tony scooped out small Corkwing Wrasse. Then Tony found a dead one as Graeme pulled out another two. Damn, I've never seen a wrasse before, would I net one too? I resolutely stuck with it and before much longer I managed to haul my own Corkwing Wrasse (Symphodus melops) out of the water and into my hand - yay!!! Here's the very first Corkwing Wrasse I caught, stunning little fella

The positioning of the dark spot near the tailfin and coloured lines across the cheek rule out other wrasse species. What a complete stunner!

I caught a similar sized Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) before Graeme hit jackpot with another new fish for me and Tony (but not for himself, haha, fair's fair!) It was a tiny, yellow clingfish. What the..? It was a Small-headed Clingfish (Apletodon dentatus) and like no other clingfish I'd ever seen before. Noticeably small-headed for starters (obviously...) and with the most bizarre sparkling blue eyes! I managed a particularly poor pic. Trust me, this is actually the best one I managed. See Graeme's blog for a better pic.

Cute huh? Amazingly this was the first of four caught! This is little known species in British waters, Kimmeridge Bay would seem to be a top site for it.

The fish list continued to grow, with a small shoal of Sand Smelt (Atherina presbyter) and then Graeme caught a 5-bearded Rockling (Ciliata mustela). Many small mullet were seen but, at that size, not specifically identified to species level, although most probably Thin-lipped.

We came across one area of shallower water where a wide rocky ledge projected into the sea, covered in pink coralline encrusting algae and we counted over 15 Sea Hares (Aplysia punctata) including this frisky ménage à trois

For some reason, we all had it in our mind that the gates were due to be closed at 5pm. Checking the time we figured we ought to start heading back rather than get locked in. Just as we arrived at the top of the beach we bumped into Jessica from the centre, coming out to check up on us. It transpired that the gates didn't even close - we could've still been down there! No worries, we'd had immense fun (even Tony, despite the fact that I'd broken his fibreglass extendable net handle - sorry Tony!) The Tompot Blenny would bring us back another day.

Back in Tony's car he suddenly made a detour whilst travelling along the A31 through the New Forest. "We're looking for a hollow tree, somewhere near the car park, near an area of open grass I think" was our only clue as we followed him through the woods in ever decreasing circles. "There was a wet bit near the tree"...right. That helps, lol. Suddenly, back by the car park, he found his bearings and strode purposefully towards a large fallen trunk with a hollow end. Looking inside we saw this -

The incredible Bearded Tooth Fungus (Hericium erinaceum) which we would NEVER have found without Tony's insider knowledge. A brilliantly unexpected end to a brilliant day.

So when we doing this again then chaps?