With the start of summer, we have a lot of practical events coming up for you! We begin with two events celebrating World Environment Day:
Friday 5th June 14:30-18:00: Gordon is leading the ‘Morecambe Bay Safari’ at the Royal Hotel, Heysham. This is followed by a guided beach walk. Meeting organised by MBP; £5 admission, booking essential: morecambebay.org.uk/events/marine-life-bay
Friday 5th June 18:00 to 18:00 6th June: Members of the MCS will be helping out at the Stanah BioBlitz (Wyre Estuary Country Park, River Road, Stanah, FY5 5LR). We will have a stand at this event on the Saturday, but local members will be available for much of the rest of the event, helping to ID marine life from two boat trawls of the estuary itself.
Following this we have our first meeting of the year at Capernwray Dive Centre:
Wednesday 10th June 19:30-20:30Morecambe Bay Cycle Way by Louise Smail. This will look at the new cycle way which now runs along the whole length of the Bay. Admission £2, all welcome. Download our poster (PDF, 102kB), or view the location in Google Maps.
Saturday 20th June 11:00 to 11:00 21st June: The Formby BioBlitz will be attended by members of the National MCS
Over the winter our meetings will be moving to the second TUESDAY of each month, starting in November. Meetings will be in the cinema, upstairs at the Gregson Centre, 33 Moore Gate, Lancaster, LA1 3PY.
The new venue offers us banked seating for 25, with full slide/video projection facilities. The next meetings are:
Tuesday 11th November:Guide to anemones (cnidaria) by Gordon Fletcher (local area group), plus a short Beachwatch annual review by Jo Kaye (local area group). All welcome, admission will be £2.
Tuesday 9th December: Annual review, AGM, quiz! Free admission; all are welcome, but only MCS members can vote at the AGM (please bring proof of membership).
We are very grateful to the Gregson for accommodation over the winter period.
By Justine Willard, National MCS, 13th November 2013
The Sea Champions initiative has passed us by in the North West – until now! This program received funding for the South of England, Scotland and Wales, and has paid for a small number of coordinators to inspire a larger number of volunteers to engage in a range of marine conservation activities and fund raising events.
Also importantly, Justine’s visit gave us a chance to talk about how we might leverage funding for a conservation officer in the North West, who could coordinate and inspire local activities. Most grant awards come with a requirement to get matching funding – but often a proportion of this can be ‘in kind’ rather than in cash. As a consequence, if you are engaged in volunteer work for the MCS, you can fill in an activity log, and we may be able to count your time against the matched funding requirement: Sea Champions Activity Log Sheet (Word .DOC file 141kB).
The talk reviewed a web project that brings together physical information about the Bay from a range of sources, including weather, sea state and river inputs. This data informs our current understanding of physical processes in the Bay. Data are interpreted in a map that shows sea states, wind directions and the levels of principle rivers over the last five days. In addition, graphical displays review sea-sate (wave height and period) and river levels over the last fifteen days.
Graph showing river levels into Morecambe Bay over the last fifteen days (archival data)
The talk went on to look at how physical conditions might interact with the geography of the Bay to influence diving conditions. There is no formal model of the Bay’s ‘underwater weather’, but a number of approaches to developing such a model were proposed.
A link to the observatory is given below, users are advised, however, that this is a ‘work in progress’, there are a few rough edges, and information is provided without warranty of any kind:
[Editor’s note: Sorry, this resource has been removed.]
The Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCA’s) are a recent addition to the management of our coastal waters, taking on the role of the Sea Fisheries Committee in 2011. Unlike the old committee; they have a broader remit to manage fisheries, social and environmental activities up to 6 miles from the coastline.
Joe’s talk took in fisheries in the Bay area, describing the mix of traditional and more modern practices, and how they are managed to help ensure sustainable stocks and livelihoods. The Bay is an unusual fishery, with fishermen employing a small number of boats, and a larger number of tractors! Both require a great degree of skill to navigate across the shifting sands safely to their preferred fishing grounds, which include some of the largest mussel beds in the world. Many of the traditional catches are sustainable – with populations of cockles and mussels experiencing natural cycles of abundance. Where there have been concerns, for example with takes of juvenile Sea Bass around Heysham, both fishermen and the angling community have supported the ‘Heysham Bass Nursery Area’, which is now closed to fishing under Byelaw 5.
With further good management, and the engagement of the fishing and angling communities, it is to be hoped that the traditional pattern of seasonal fisheries can be sustained for the foreseeable future.
Presented by Lewis Bambury at Capernwray Dive Centre, this talk reviewed some of the photographs taken on the shore walk at Roa Island in July, and put this into the broader context of our previous surveys of this area.
The parasite Lernaeenicus sprattae shown on a juvenile spratt, and after removal
One of our mystery organisms (pictured) was a parasite on one of the juvenile spratts caught in the rock pools. Lewis had narrowed it down to probably being a copepod, and this was confirmed by David Fenwick and Mike Moon, who identified the species as Lernaeenicus sprattae. Commonly seen on Spratts in UK waters, it gets its name from its preferred feeding mode, attached to the eye of the unfortunate fish. Extensive parasitism is possible, and this can result in considerable deterioration in the health of individual fish. The two green appendages are egg sacks.
Some of the other organisms featured in the talk are shown in the gallery below, alongside some photos taken underwater on the same site:
Above: Photograph of the Roa Island lifeboat station at sunset, with Piel Castle in the background, taken Wednesday 19 June 2013
Our next monthly meeting will take place at Roa Island, a site which has been visited and surveyed by our group for at least twenty years! The meeting, from 18:30 on Wednesday 24 July, is an informal shore walk to coincide with an exceptionally low tide, so we hope to see a lot of sea life exposed on the beach and in small pools that we would normally have to dive so see.
Just so the divers aren’t left out, we have a small number of high water dives planned in the run up to the shore walk*. The first of these was on the 19th June in near perfect conditions. Diving close by the pier and lifeboat station we saw a number of the same creatures underwater, that we will get to see exposed in a few weeks time.
At our August meeting (back at Capernwray Dive Centre) we hope to bring together the shore walk and dives (and maybe earlier survey work) to get a ‘hands on’ picture of life above and below the tide at this very interesting local site.
Please note: The walk in July is suitable for (accompanied) children, but be aware that the beach is very muddy, and you should wear shoes or boots that you are happy to get wet and dirty. If you bring a camera – best to have an underwater housing for it in case… You are free to explore, but most people stay within site of the pier, so it is not important if you arrive late.
Journey time from Lancaster – about one and a half hours, all welcome!
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* Please note that dives at Roa Island are very dependent upon the weather, so there are a number of possible dates in the diary that we shall ‘cherry pick’ from…
Presented by Lewis Bambury and Gordon Fletcher of the local area group, these talks on the 12 June 2013 at Capernwray Dive Centre looked at some typical dive sites in the North West of England.
Gordon introduced the topic with reference to the local geology, which was completely re-modelled by the last ice age. Offshore this leaves three dominant ecosystems – extended, shallow, muddy plains dotted with the remains of drumlins which provide a scatter of ill-sorted boulders and pebbles, plus the Lune Deeps – a U-shaped glacial valley that reaches depths in excess of 60m. The fine sediments make for difficult diving conditions, as witnessed by Lewis’ introductory slide, and a diver interested in marine life needs to acclimatise to an environment that is nearly monochrome, covered in a fine silt that lifts into an impenetrable veil with the slightest fin kick.
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Above: approximate location of the Hebe at the entrance of the channel to Preston Docks.
The ecosystems, while shallow, are dominated by animal life due to the fine suspended silt that cuts off the sunlight needed by seaweed. The mud is inhabited by secretive, burrowing worms, molluscs and crustacea – species we don’t see on most popular dive sites. Where a solid substrate is provided either by a wreck, or by a boulder scatter, the species mix is dominated by hornwrack (a common find on the strand-line around the Bay), with sponges, anemones and hydroids also being abundant. Lewis’ photos showed the dramatic difference between the mud plains and the site of the Hebe, a steamship stranded on Horse Bank 11th December 1911, with the plains apparently featureless with the odd worm-cast, starfish or antenna hinting at the presence of life beneath the surface, whilst the old iron plates of the Hebe bloomed with a profusion of plumose anemones, with mussels and hydroids filling any available gap.
Lewis thanked Darwen Sub Aqua Cub (based near Blackburn) for inviting him to join them on visits to the Hebe and the Lune Deeps.
The talk was prefaced by a short introduction to our beach-clean program by Jo Kaye. The next beach cleans at Half Moon Bay are scheduled for Sunday 16th June and Saturday 21st September 2013.
Our latest visit to Oban on the 10th May was wet in every sense of the word – with almost continuous rain, but also some exceptionally good diving. Dives centred on Loch Creran, with the wormery and the inner basin being popular with all of the group.
Following from the talk about surveys in the area on the 8th, we can confirm that there are quite a lot of orange coloured worms (Serpula vermicularis) – these being seen by several divers, and possibly accounting for several percent of the individuals seen. While none were as clearly yellow as the single specimen photo’d back in 2007, this is a pretty strong indication that yellow is at least possible for this species (see gallery).
Less good news on the sea-pen front, however. A dive at Loch Feochan turned out a large number of common sea-pens (Virgularia mirabilis) in very shallow water (3-5m). Amongst these were a large number of juveniles that looked a lot like the specimen photographed at Gallanach over Easter (see gallery). After a discussion with Ron I am forced to concede that there is no current evidence for Funiculina quadrangularis at Gallanach, though Ron has seen this species there on previous occasions… (We’ll have to look again!).
Reef of Serpula vermicularis showing range in colours
Photo of the juvenile form of the common sea pen Virgularia mirabilis
Sea cucumber Psolus phantapus, oral view
Unidentified sea cucumber, oral view
Psolus phantapus, side view
Unidentified sea cucumber, side view
Cerianthus lloydii
Ciona intestinalis on an old mooring line
Otherwise a great spectacle was put on by sea-cucumbers, with very large numbers of Psolus to be seen below about 10m in the inner basin of Loch Creran – densities reaching several individuals per square metre. There were some sea cucumbers in the outer basin as well, but in slightly deeper water (ca 18m+). There appears to be at least one other species present – but I’m not sure of its identity (photo in the gallery). Other high spots of the weekend included a thornbacked ray and a couple of dogfish.
Non divers enjoyed the Falls of Lora, and an excellent trip to the Oban Sea Life Centre (where thornbacked rays and dogfish were demanding petting!), but it was a bit damp for cycling or kayaking…
Thanks to Tralee Bay for accommodation and Gordon for organising the trip.
