I have not posted as much on the blog as I would have liked this year (in fact, I keep posting less and less: 24 times this year, compared with 33, 46 and 64 posts the previous years). My new year’s resolutions will be to dive more, to go rock pooling more and to blog more. For now, I will post some miscellaneous photos from this year that I did not bother to put on the blog at the time (as I did last year). Below a Beadlet anemone Actinia equina on the beach in St. Ives as well as a young cormorant looking for food taken with my new Canon G16:
I caught a number of different fish this year, the first photo shows a small Montagu’s blenny Coryphoblennius galerita in an aquarium net which were fun to watch in a little aquarium. Next a Longspined scorpionfish Taurulus bubalis caught with my big net off the quay and a Sand smelt Atherina presbyter (see here for a movie). The latter species did not last long in my tank unfortunately. I mentioned in the last aquarium update that a Topknot I caught seemed to have died in the tank too, but I found out it is still there, it just likes to hide behind the rocks.
I visited the quirky Victorian Horniman Museum and Aquarium on a trip to London which features lots of stuffed animals and diorama’s which I find quite fascinating. The aquarium part is small; there is some behind the scene coral (sexual) propagation research going on which sounds very interesting. There were two or three coldwater tanks too, the larger tanks were not much too look at (I know how hard it is…) but I really liked the Victorian fountain-style aquarium. A quick snap here; see this video for a nice overview. I would like to collect some Black brittlestars Ophiocomina nigra next year, they can be very abundant at slightly deeper sites.
I also visited the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth for a second time. It features the deepest aquarium in the UK, complete with plane wreck and some Sandtiger sharks. I was more interested in the coldwater stuff, of which there was quite a bit. I especially liked the Lesser weever Echiichthys vipera which can be caught on sandy shores; their venomous sting would make handling a bit tricky though. There were some cute pipefish (these need live food and I do not want to commit to that) and a round display with loads of Snakelocks anemones (see the first picture posted on this blog). I have placed a couple of these in my aquarium again, perhaps I need to get a few more, as they are so pretty and easy to keep. I did not manage to get a good shot of the very impressive Wreck fish or Stone bass Polyprion americanus in the large coldwater display unfortunately. 
Next up a washed up sponge in Falmouth (species unknown) and a live one (Aplysilla sulfurea) under a rock, both taken in Falmouth with my iPhone. I have only been diving a couple of times this year and did not post about the rocky shore dives (here some photos of the maerl and eelgrass beds). I have seen a variety of interesting animals, including cuttlefish, a conger eel and lobsters but next year I hope to go out a bit further and dive a bit deeper to finally see jewel anemones and dead man’s fingers. I am not sure I want to commit to a flash and strobes though, instead I’d like to practice my rock pool (seaweed) photography. 
Category Archives: nets
last two dives of the year
Summer is really over and the water temperatures are down from around 17°C to 13°C. We have not made it to any of the wrecks or rocks off The Lizard and the last set of dives was just of the good old Silver Steps in Falmouth. We had set ourselves some goals though: Chris needed Snakelocks anemones for his student projects and I wanted to catch myself some Leopard-spotted gobies for the aquarium. The Snakelocks were collected quite easily as they are so abundant. For the fish, I had bought a cheap foldable trap. The idea was to set it up in a little overhang housing the gobies, weighing it down with some rocks and come back the next day to take it back out. For bait, I had brought a chickenbone leftover from someones lunch at work. Below, a crappy pick of the trap wedged between rocks and below that a snap of some of the catch the next day (I had a two-piece websuit and in combination with an almost empty tank I was getting too buoyant to take decent photos): 
Three nosy Tompot blennies and also a small Conger eel; no Leopard-spotted gobies. So at least I know that in principle next year I can try trapping fish, but it might be hard for the gobies as they are very reclusive and do not barge into nets as Tompots do. The first dive, the visibility was OK(ish) and we saw a Cuttlefish Sepia officinalis. Although I have seen them before, you never get tired of them!
No other special finds. The place was absolutely swarming with Spiny starfish and most Snakelocks seemed to have multiple Leach’s spider crabs underneath them. I saw another Blackfaced blenny. Next year it is high time to dive further and deeper and also to finally get some gobies into the aquarium!
Mud pooling off the Quay
I have previously posted about exploring the more muddy sites in Flushing’s Penryn River and also about catching fish with a net from the quay (here and here). This weekend had a good tide and I decided to combine the two by climbing down from the quay with my net. No blue water and clear, colourful rock pools but black mud, waste from fishing boats and in general a lot of crap, not a pretty sight/site! Mussels and (native) oysters, rock gobies, fan worms and estuary sponge are common here. Lifting one piece of waste, i found a juvenile Eel Anguilla anguilla, which was impossible to grab and place into my cuvette for a proper photograph. One cool find were bundles of squid eggs (no idea about the species). I also found tangles of the sponge Sycon ciliatum, which before I had only seen as individuals hanging from seaweeds (see here). Also visible are some Leucosolenia botryoides sponges.
There was a heap of discarded scallop shells; I noticed they were covered by large Balanus balanus barnacles as well as the soft coral Dead man’s fingers Alcyonium digitatum (I had never seen this before but this could only be one thing!). The lower parts of the quaysides were covered in estuary and breadcrumb sponges and especially in droopy Morchellium (or Aplidium?) sea squirts. Although generally an ‘ugly’ habitat with lots of waste to boot, still plenty of interesting finds.
more netting from the quay
In a recent post I showed some pictures of fish I caught off the quay in Flushing. I have since quite regularly scraped the sides of the quay with my net and netted a bunch more species. No good pictures of the Shanny, Rock Goby and Two-spotted goby yet, but here are some OK pictures of other species (I do not like to keep the fish too long out of the water so it is a bit rushed). Besides many juvenile individuals, occasionally I catch an adult Corkwing wrasse Symphodus melops. I have only once I managed to cath a bright green juvenile Ballan wrasse Labrus bergylta:
Twice I have caught a Sea scorpion Taurulus bubalis, they look a bit like gremlins. Once I caught a Greater pipefish Syngnathus acus, very cool:
My friend Thor is a very good photographer with a very good camera and he made some great pictures of fish in the cuvet this week. Two Corkwings, a Fifteen-spined stickleback Spinachia spinachia, some Thick-lipped (probably) grey mullet Chelon labrosus. The latter are more difficult to catch as they are in open water and the net has a small mesh size. As a bonus the most common catch, a Common prawn Palaemon serratus:
Netting
With the aquarium ready and a neap tide, I resorted to some fishing from the quay with my humongous (>2.5 meter) net. This thing is a pain when moving/emigrating but I’m glad I’ve kept it. It is custom-made for RAVON: Reptielen Amfibien en Vissen Onderzoek Nederland (Reptiles Amphibians and Fish Research The Netherlands), a great club that I joined for a while when living in Holland. (The ‘fish’ in the acronym covers only the species living or migrating in fresh water). The net can be bought via the RAVON web shop; at the time they also sold a handy cuvet:
I have scraped along the sides of the main quay in Flushing a number of times now (btw, the quay was built by the Dutch; Flushing is named after Vlissingen in Zeeland, the old Cornish name of the village is Nankersey). Two-spot gobies (the most common semi-benthic species), a rock goby and even a Fifteen-spined stickleback Spinachia spinachia have ended up in the net. The last species I did not keep, as they prefer live food that I cannot offer them, but I took it home for a quick pic:
I never caught young mullet, a species that is great for the aquarium, which is strange as they are common around water fronts. This weekend to my surprise I caught two wrasse for the aquarium: a Rock cook Centrolabus exoletus and a Corkwing wrasse Symphodus melops. Two very beautiful little fish (both species grow up to 15 cm, these were around 5 cm). Here the Rock cook Corkwing wrasse that looked superficially like a Rock cook but back home in the aquarium showed its distinctive spot on the base of the tailfin (best way to identify is counting scales and rays but that is almost impossible now; useful info on wrasse determination on this angling site):
An Bollenessor 