By Bethany Brooks
If you take a wander around Farland Point, or perhaps up past the Ferry slipway to White Bay, you will come across rocky shore. A dynamic, ever-changing and fascinating habitat filled with unique and specialised creatures, if you take some time to look closer.
Which we will do now……
The best time to go and have a look for some of these amazing critters is at low tide. To maximise the time you have to look, aim to get to the shore about half an hour before low tide. A quick online search will give you local tide times for your area, and as always, be safe and sensible when clambering around on slippery rocks.
If you want to go rock-pooling, you don’t really need much – a pair of shoes you don’t mind getting wet in rockpools, or wellies, maybe an ID guide (I’d recommend the FSC Publications, here: https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/rocky-shore-name-trail/ and https://www.field-studies-council.org/shop/publications/seashore-pack/) and some enthusiasm! When we take groups to the rocky shore, we’ll also take some hand nets; some white plastic trays so you can easily see what you’ve found; and some buckets so we can collect animals for a short period of time and compare findings at the end of the session. If the water is particularly cold, or you have very sensitive skin, I would also recommend some clean washing up gloves, just to keep your hands dry.
And now we are ready to begin!
Once you get to the shore, the first animals you will notice are some you might not think too much about – barnacles and limpets. Barnacles are the wee spikey shells encrusted onto rocks. They are good to use as grip on the slippery rocks, but they’re actually small crustaceans – related to crabs and lobsters. As larvae (baby barnacles), they float around in the sea until they mature and find a colony of barnacles. Then they turn themselves upside down, attach their forehead to a rock, and build a hard shell out of calcium deposits. These shells are made of six plate that can open and close to feed. During feeding, the barnacle extends its cirri (foot) to catch floating particles of food.
Limpets are the larger, round and pointed shells attached to rocks at the top of the rocky shore. They are in fact, snails, and feed by scraping their radula (a kind of tongue with a rough surface) on algae.
Start looking under the thick clumps of seaweed as you move further down the shore. You will start noticing more marine snails, like periwinkles and dog whelks. Both snails come in a variety of colour morphs to camouflage them from predators.
You’ll also start seeing some small, flat, stripy snails. These are topshells and they have a lovely iridescent shell. These snails are found all along the coast of the UK, and are a popular choice of shell for hermit crabs.
As you move down the shore, you might notice something that looks a little like a blob of red jelly. These are retracted beadlet anemones, and if you’re lucky enough to spot one in a rockpool, it will look vastly different. Underwater, they open up and present loads of tentacles that they use for stinging and capturing small fish, invertebrates and anything unlucky enough to get eaten by these guys.
(Photos by Jack Lucas and Bethany Brooks)
At the bottom of the shore and around rockpools, you can turn over smaller rocks to see what might be hiding beneath. Be careful to gently turn these over, and to return them to how you found them once you’re done. This way you can find some of the smaller and shyer creatures, like young porcelain crabs; small starfish; brittle stars and green sea urchins.
If you have a careful look in rockpools and see something that looks like a snail shell moving rather quickly, chances are, you’ve found a hermit crab. Pick them up by the shell (gently!) and you’ll be able to hold one in a hand. They’re a bit shy, so you have to wait for a moment for it to come out of his shell, or gently turn them over to see their claws and legs. Hermit crabs don’t have a hard shell, unlike other crabs, so they rely on discarded shells of dead snails to protect them from predators. As they grow, they require bigger shells to adequately protect themselves, so you might be lucky enough to see them change their shells.
Urchins are best found under rocks where water can reach. They are quite tricky to find, however, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t see any! Urchins are relatives of starfish, and they graze upon kelp and algae on rocks using a specialised mouth structure known as Aristotle’s lantern.
Right: A lot of green urchins at White Bay.
(Photos by Jack Lucas)
Turn over the thicker bits of kelp and oarweed near the bottom of the shore and you might be lucky enough to spot a blue-rayed limpet or two! Extremely small and striking, these guys munch along a strip of kelp, right down to the base of the algae. This loosens the seaweed’s grip on the rocks, and it can be washed away by strong storms.
Right: A group of four blue-rayed limpets. They will often cluster like this, munching their way down a piece of kelp.
(Photos by Bethany Brooks and Jack Lucas)
These are only some of the creatures you might find on our rocky shore, but there are many more if you get out there and start exploring! Please leave the site as you found it, and be careful climbing on rocks. Always be aware of the tide.
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