A Walk on the Wet Side

Inspired by a request from my editor and one of the gorgeous Martin Hughes-Games‘s holiday pieces on Springwatch, I decided to break with tradition and try something new. Now those of you who know me know that my wildlife interests and traditions are definitely more feather than fur but when Jo asked me if I could do a piece on marine wildlife, straight away I said ‘Yup I can give that a shot.' This was immediately followed by panic: what on earth would I write? Thankfully the panic was short-lived and was soon replaced by enthusiasm about doing something new and intrigue about what I might discover. I should really be ashamed of myself about how little I know. I live by one of the most fantastic coastlines in the UK, with the Mumbles and Gower a short journey away and Pembrokeshire Coastal Park not much further.

So where to start? Well, my husband was brought up right by the beach so taking his lead we set off one evening to do a little research. Little did we know what an eye-opener it would turn out to be and that it would end up in my hubby renaming Rest Bay, by Porthcawl, South Wales. The intention was to find somewhere suitable, check out tide times and then return during the day to do some proper exploring.

We enjoyed a really pleasant drive down to the Bay and as we drove the last part to the cark park we could see that the tide was quite high and that the water was absolutely full of surfers. The sun was beginning to set behind them (we had set out quite late) and it was a really lovely scene. We were just looking for somewhere to park when we saw something quite unexpected: a completely naked surfer, standing at the back of his car, drying himself down after a lovely evening's surfing. Now women and men react differently to these sorts of things: hubby burst out laughing and said ‘Surfer's Bottom!!' and I feigned shock and said ‘Good grief, that's not the sort of marine wildlife I had in mind' but was laughing too. Hence the name change, and to us at least, Rest Bay will now always be known as Surfer's Bottom.

But back to the main point of this piece - proper marine wildlife (feathers not included).

The following day was looking to be a hot one so we set off in the morning to take advantage of the last couple of hours before high tide. We went armed only with our camera but we soon realised that we would have benefited from taking a jam jar or a bucket and some form of identification guide. Some of the rock pools in this area can be very deep so we hoped to find lots of interesting things. Unfortunately what we found, at first, was broken glass, rubbish and discarded disposable barbecues! I have to admit that at this point I was ready to give up and go home and write you a piece on foxes or badgers when hubby said ‘I've found a limpet over here.' Then one of my daughters said ‘Ooh a fish,' which actually turned out to be more of a shrimp-like animal we have yet to identify. The next discovery was a crab, desperately trying to dig its way deeper into the pool, which of course he couldn't do. Also the pools seemed to have lots of little red ‘things' floating around in them. Still not sure what they were. This is the point when some sort of guide would have been useful: either a book or someone who could talk to us about what we were looking at. I was so excited to discover this new world and I really wanted to know exactly what I was seeing.

It was around this time that I remembered a talk that we had at our local biodiversity group last year. It was by a local lady called Judith Oakley. Judith specialises in Marine Awareness and has worked closely with a number of organisations and local authorities to promote an understanding of the impact us messy and thoughtless humans have on marine environments. Not only did she show us her wonderful photography, she also highlighted the huge problems that litter causes on beaches. A lot of this litter is washed up but a lot comes from visitors to the beach. She told us that the majority of this litter is plastic: plastic bottles, toys, packaging and bags to name a few. Now, here in Wales we are lucky enough to have an amazing spectacle take place just off the West Wales coast each year. We have an influx of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jellyfish and often following them are leatherback turtles, who come to feed on them. The turtles sometimes mistake some of these discarded plastic bags floating in the sea for jellyfish but they cannot digest the bag and it gets trapped causing the turtle to choke. Not pleasant.

But please, I don't want this to stop you getting out and enjoying the beach and the rock pools. I am so delighted to have found something new and so interesting and really can't wait to go back. I've just discovered that Judith has compiled a Seashore guide for our area so this time I will be going suitably armed with the guide and a jar. Oh and some stronger sunblock (and a bigger towel for the surfer!). So go and explore our coast and find out more about our marine wildlife. I'm just beginning to learn more about it and I hope you would like to learn more too.

Perhaps you can discover your own ‘Surfer's Bottom'.

There is a rock pooling code which can be found here. It is basically the countryside code with a little more information.

Fiona Sharp

Want to do your bit to help protect our seashores and marine wildlife? The RSPB are asking everyone to Help Make the Marine Bill Count. Click here to find out more.

photos (c) Teulu Miniog 2009

Starfish photo (c) Becca Sharp 2009