Hardly a Bird Blog! (14th February)

Went down to Swanpool today with the Bio-science students.  A short wander around Swanpool recording mostly plant species for the day list (which I will bore you with later).

First up though was a brief sneak peak at Swanpool where I had been give the tip of by Dan that a dead diver species had washed up.  Unfortunately, and rather embarrassingly I must admit I dipped on the dead bird!  In fact it was a rather birdless day with Little Egret perhaps being the only bird highlight of the day!  None the less it was a brilliant day with a massive success at rock pooling which we moved on to next.  At Swanpool Point, we managed to catch and ID an impressive array and variety of rocky shore species including, Spotted Cowrie, Common Brittlestar, Shore Rockling, a Cornish Sucker ( a relatvely localised and scarce species in the UK apparantly), a pregnant male Pipefish (rather interestingly, sexes reverse pregnancy responsibilities), Small Cushion Star, Hermit Crab, Velvet Swimming Crab, Broad-clawed Porcelain Crab, Shanny, Yellow Plumed Sea Slug, Beadlet Anemone, Daisy Anemone, and perhaps the best highlight a stunningly well camouflaged and attractive fish, a Long-spined Sea Scorpion!  And finally another Common Starfish unfortunately flying through the sky with the aid of a Herring Gull.

 Long-spined Sea Scorpion

 Velvet Swimming Crab

 unIDed

 Spotted Cowrie

 Montagu's Crab

 pregnant male Pipefish

 Shore Rockling

 Shanny

 Common Brittlestars

 Broad-clawed Porcelain Crab

 Cornish Sucker

 Yellow-plumed Sea Slug

 Small Cushion Star

 Daisy Anemone

Hermit Crab