Seagrass Macro

Posted on October 26, 2025 by An Bollenessor under anemones, bryozoans, eelgrass, Flushing, Macro, molluscs, mzuiko60mm, nudibranchs, photography, tunicates

I had a couple of good snorkels at the end of summer in the seagrass beds off my local beach in Flushing. The water at the end of summer is warm enough to go without wetsuit – I just had a weightbelt to let me sink down on the sand at low tide, no fins needed. I managed to do what I normally find very difficult: spot nudibranchs! Mainly one of the more common species, Polycera quadrilineata, but that was fine by me, as they are very beautiful, especially the black colour morph pictured above. I spotted one other species, the egg-eating Favorinus branchialis (with its own eggs also visible). Not great photos, but in my defense they are very small!

Shelled molluscs are easier to find. Below 1) the ubiquitous Grey Topshell Steromphala cinerarea, 2) the Grooved Topshell Jujubinus striatus and 3) the tiny Rissoa membranacea (faecal pellets on show, even within the shell). The latter two species are strongly associated with seagrass.

Some assorted macro photos below and at the end a view at a very low tide of the Flushing seagrass site this October.

First attempts at macro photography

Posted on March 26, 2017 by An Bollenessor under Canon G16, crustaceans, eggs, Macro, nudibranchs, tunicates, worms

I recently posted my first photos taken with the nauticam CMC macro wetlens using stalked jellyfish as a subject. I since lost my lens, which I in large part blame on the bad fit of the adapter with which it is attached to the housing. The best thing in these cases is not to agonize over it too much, order a new one straight away and keep going, so that is what I did (also I am now a bit more careful of course). Here some more photos of macro subjects. Above a very easy subject as it is very common this time of year and also it does not move….Paddle worm egg capsules (~~probably~~ Eulalia ~~viridis~~ clavigera). The individual eggs can be just made out in the gelatinous blob. Below, one of the more common nudibranch species Polycera quadrilineata. Nudibranchs come in all kinds of stunning colour variations and are very species rich and so are a favourite of macro photographers (see this old post hunting for them with David Fenwick in Newlyn, and check out the NE Atlantic Nudibranch facebook page for lots of eye candy). Tricky with the narrow depth of field to get the whole animal in focus. Mysid shrimp are quite common and beautiful little animals hovering about in small groups. They need dissection to determine which species it is, but this might be Leptomysis lingvura (around 10 mm). Finally, the colonial star Ascidian Botryllus schlosseri; these form colonies (‘systems’) where zooids have individual inhalant openings and a shared exhalant opening. They are common, sessile, flat, and come in a range of colours so they make ideal subjects for a beginning macro photographer. Not only that, apart from fish they are our closest relatives in rock pools, which is most obvious in the tadpole-like larvae which have a dorsal notochord (a cartilage rod functioning as a backbone). I hope to devote a post to them later in the year.

Nudibranchs

Posted on October 4, 2015 by An Bollenessor under nudibranchs, pontooning

This Saturday I was at the marina in Newlyn, where local natural history expert David Fenwick was kindly showing me how he obtains the samples he finds so many creatures in (worms, copepods, tunicates, forams and many other things). Todays focus was on nudibranchs, arguably the most beautiful group of little critters. David has recorded an amazing 46 nudibranch species from these pontoons alone! As this is the most Southwesterly pontoon in the country, it is a bit of a ‘sentinel site’ for southern species with northward-shifting ranges. Indeed David has found a species new to the UK that has also been discovered in the south of Spain and possibly off the coast of Morocco. He often sends samples away to (inter)national labs for sequencing and further investigation and frequently shares his finds on facebook (see the links page for relevant facebook groups). For all things marine in Cornwall see his website: Aphotomarine, an edicational resource dedicated mainly to the photography and diversity of marine life that is found in the coastal waters and rockpools of south-west England. Also check out his Aphotofungi, Aphotoflora, Aphotofauna and Stauromedusae.uk. Luckily for me, I can show off some of David’s images in this post too.

The drill: scrape off seaweeds (mainly kelps) covered in tunicates, hydroids, other seaweeds and silt (very mucky business, especially when collected lying on a pontoon covered in seagull-excrement). Next, vigorously wash the seaweeds in a bucket. Sieve the resulting silty water, pick out larger objects (sea squirts etc) from the sieve and gently wash the silt away in a fresh bucket. Then transfer the material to a white tray for preliminary inspection. Some nudibranchs can be observed this way, but the bulk of the animals only show themselves after the sample has been brough home. In warm weather, samples can get deoxygenated, so a battery-powered airpump is a good thing to have. To avoid sloshing, plastic vessels are filled to the brim by opening the lid slightly when held underwater.Back home, samples are placed in the fridge and subsamples are periodically checked under the stereomicroscope. Most animals are a bit more active in the cooled water but some are not. Some come out in the dark, others in the light, so changing the conditions is necessary to see everything that is hidden in the debris. David processed the samples that same afternoon and indeed a lot more came crawling out! From top to bottom: Cuthona amoena, C. foliata, Doto sp., Eubranchus farrani, Facelina annulicornis, F. auriculata, Polycera faeroensis, Elysia viridis (juvenile), Palio nothus, Aegirus punctilucens (juvenile) and Polycera quadrilineata (same species at the top of the post). For more beautiful nudibranch photos see the relevant Aphotomarine section. A very cool activity indeed, although at this point in my life I have not enough time at my disposal to do it justice…However, there definitely will be some smaller olloclip-iPhone sessions at Mylor marina soon!