A quick post as it has been a while…..Last Sunday we went on a walk on sunny Carne Beach on the Roseland Peninsula. The primary aim was to get some fresh air, the second to find some dahlia anemones to bring home to the aquarium (we succeeded in that) and the third to do a bit of beach combing. Nothing much washed up, but we did find a number of live Necklace Shells (Euspira catena). These gastropods hunt bivalves in and on the sand; if you see shell valves with a neat little hole in them, you know they were victims of this predator. They are name after their necklace-shaped, sandy egg capsules (see here).
This one is about as big as they get. Their cousins in the North-East of the Pacific Ocean (Euspira lewisii) are something else though, take a look at this!
Tag Archives: iPhone
Portuguese Man O’ War
It is that time of the year again: gales, rain and darkness. The only good thing about late autumn/winter to me is that the wind blows interesting things on the beach. Portuguese Men o’ War (Physalia physalis) have been a common sight the last few years (see this post from 2017), perhaps more so than it used to be, but not sure this has been properly investigated. Yesterday we saw several dozen at Loe Bar near Helston, including the smallest specimen I have seen so far. No By-the-Wind-Sailors Vellella and no Violet Snails Janthina, and definitely no Porpita or Glaucus; maybe someday!
Carne Beach
I have not been tempted to go back snorkeling yet, but had an hour of nice rockpooling last Saturday, at beautiful Carne Beach on the Roseland Peninsula. I had been here only once before, and found my first stalked jellyfish then. The stalked jellies (Haliclystus octoradiatus) where still there, in different colours: brown, yellow and grey (I will keep to my resolution to record my findings from now on, when I find the time). My old trusted iPhone 4S finally gave up the ghost last week so I upgraded to an iPhone SE which proved a real upgrade. (I was too lazy to bring out the Canon G16 in the underwaterhousing, which would not have been much use anyway as the pools here are very shallow.) The pools were teeming with (mating) polychaete worms and there were many juvenile Sea hares about as well. I saw whole mats of pink wriggling tentacles sticking out of the sand, something I had never seen before. These (most likely) belong to the worm Cirriformia tentaculata, quickly identified by David Fenwick, see here for very good photos of the whole animal on his aphotomarine site in addition to the rather bad snap here. 
I found a hermit crab inhabiting the shell of a (juvenile) pelican’s foot Aporrhais pespelecani, a species that shares the sandy beach with the razor clams that were washed up all around. The highlight for me were the anemones. Snakelocks and strawberries were common, and in addition to red Beadlet anemones, there were green ones as well (I never see these in Falmouth). Some pools at the edge of the rocks and the beach were filled with Daisy-, Gem- and Dahlia anemones. I am ready for some more seaside adventures, but the weather is rarely cooperating these days. More on the blog soon I hope! 
100th post: iPhone macro pics
When publishing the last post, I noticed that the next one would be the 100th; I have been quite the blogger the last year-and-a-half! Although this is a pretty obscure blog, it is still fun to see that people from all over the world (Bosnia, Jemen, Maldives, Cape Verde) check it out. It takes a bit of time writing posts, but it has been a good way to take stock of what I have seen and learned, much better than just having a folder with pictures on my computer. It has even brought me in touch with some fellow enthusiasts. For this post I made a Picasa album of a bunch of rock pooling macro pictures I took with my iPhone 4S + olloclip lens (not the cheapest macrolens for the phone but it is worth every penny). The majority of them have been featured on the blog at some point. The two pictures below haven’t: a Black shields lichen Tephromela atra and some Thick-lipped dogwhelks Nassarius incrassatus. The complete album can be found HERE.
south of maenporth beach
We went for a stroll last weekend in between showers: starting from Maenporth beach, following the coastal path south (direction Lizard). We discovered a nice, rocky beach with an abundance of rock pools. Not that much time to explore, but the pools seemed different from those on Castle Beach: filled with sand and with much more bare rock (probably because of scouring).
Pestleweed Gigartina pestillata (not entirely sure but a species tolerant to sand cover so that fits) was common. I found a small (5 mm) jade-coloured egg mass on this seaweed that I could snap using my iPhone olloclip macrolens. According to the SeaSearch Identifications facebook group, probably from the Green leaf worm Eulalia viridis. from the snail Lacuna vincta.
aquarium update: snails
Time for an update. The five Snakelocks anemones have settled and are doing very well (I have fed them some defrosted shrimps which they quickly devour). The Leach’s spider crab was sitting happily under one of the anemones until it decided to move behind a piece of slate and now does not show itself much anymore. Perhaps this has to do with a prawn I introduced, although I have not seen any scuffles. I have to see what I’ll do about this. If it is really shy then I perhaps have to choose between keeping it or introducing fish. In any case I have seen it munching on some algae and a dead Cushion star and it seems to do OK.
The main problem I have is the dreaded return of algae…There is quite a diversity of them: fuzzy green ones, darker green blotches, slimy purple ones, brown diatoms and more. All interesting organisms surely but I do not want them to take over the tank! I have used food sparingly and used the skimmer most nights, but now have also removed my daylight lamp, to leave a single actinic lamp (see this post about lighting). I still have to get used to this new look, but less light must surely help. Most interestingly, I have enlisted the help of 80 or so grazing snails. Mainly the Common periwinkle Littorina littorea and the Flat top shell Gibbula umbilicalis but also some other species, including two very small Painted top shells Calliostoma zizyphimum. I never had many snails in my aquarium, as they were always eaten by Shannies, but hopefully they will survive this time. I will dunk in a lot more snails, and keep an eye out which species does best. A Flat top shell (picture taken using my olloclip macrolens for the iPhone):
One returning encrusting red algae is actually a seaweed, with new ‘leaves’ growing from the round crusts. I suspect it is Devil’s tongue weed Grateloupia turuturu. I have been scraping it off the glass, except from the corners where the scraper is of no use, but will let the rest sit and see how it grows:
I also noticed that Sea lettuce Ulva has started to grow from the slate. The aquarium does not look that nice yet, but with the new animals there is plenty to watch in any case!
An Bollenessor 