As part of the current Marine ID course I’ve been running around trying to get together photos of some common seaweed for part 2… Unfortunately the local coastline is not at all hospitable to seaweed, the extensive mudflats of Morecambe bay are good for molluscs and worms, but offer few attachment points for the larger algal species (I think the phytoplankton might be a fascinating study – but that would be a bit outside the current remit!).

Never the less, I took my camera down to the beach at the weekend for the MCS walk from Warton Crag and round Jenny Browns Point by Silverdale (Saturday 24th April).

Here there is some hard ground, allowing seaweed to get a hold. Highest up the rocks appeared Blidingia (filamentous green stuff) and small amounts of Ulva intestinalis (fatter tubular green stuff), followed by Pelvetia canaliculata (channel wrack), at the base of the sequence was Fucus spriralis (spiral wrack) – beyond that stretched the mud as far as the eye can see…

The complete sequence was over in about 30cm of height – so extremely truncated!

Thanks to Hilary for organising the walk (my feet have almost forgiven me!)