So August is out, and now all we can look forward to is an Indian summer. It’s now officially the wettest English summer on record and what a wash-out it turned out to be.
The coastal festival events, so regularly bathed in blistering sunshine in past years, were often overcast and, on more than one occasion, totally rained off! I hope that you managed to get along to an event if you were planning to come, as the wildlife put on an incredible performance, even if the meteology did not.
I suppose this is why rockpooling continues to enthral me, and keeps me bursting with enthusiasm, and I really shouldn't be surprised but, once again, new creatures were plucked from the water often at the least likely times.
At one of the later Sidmouth dates we were lucky enough to have a real fish-fest. First of all came the not uncommon five-bearded rockling, an eel-like creature which can be pretty much counted on along the East Devon coast. That was soon joined by what I thought was a shanny, only on closer inspection to reveal small 'antlers' growing from the top of its head.
“Tompot blenny!” I exclaimed excitedly, quickly regretting my outburst, as I realised I was wrong for the second time. The colouring was wrong for a tompot blenny, a jovial little fish from the lower shore. This was a Montague's blenny, a small stripy fish with little antlers and a specialist of inter-tidal rockpools. The fish is named after a famous natural historian George Montague who discovered many species of bird and mollusc and has a local connection. In 1798 he moved to Kingsbridge, and is buried in Kingsbridge Parish Church. Many species are named after him, including the majestic Montague's Harrier and the Montague's sea snail, which is, confusingly, a fish!
Back to the haul, and the third fish to grace the tray was a Dover sole, then followed by a worm pipefish and its larger relation, the deep-snouted pipefish. Both these fish are members of the seahorse family and can be thought of as a seahorse that has been stretched out thin. A young boy then appeared with a fish in a net, in a bucket. I wondered why the belt-and-braces approach was necessary?
In the net was a beautiful fish, which I have to admit I did not immediately recognise. It was obviously not a rockpool dweller as it had a deep body and large fins, developed for open water swimming. I thought it a young pollack but, on getting back to the office and consulting the aptly authored Fish & Fish; A Student's Guide to the Seashore found it to be a bib. What a stunner.
More was to come, with a pair of dragonets, strange slightly flattened fish with big eyes and a long dorsal fin, which they use for signalling while lying on the seabed. Now the only outstanding fish left to be discovered was a humble shanny, which diligently jumped into someone's net a moment later.
But the biggest surprise of the coastal festival belongs to Exmouth's very own Maer Rocks. Two creatures were found amongst the weed, neither of which was bigger than my thumb-nail, but which took my breath away!
Firstly, I found a baby lobster under a rock while looking for squat lobsters. To be fair, I thought it was a squat lobster to begin with, but on closer inspection of the tiny sugar-puff sized animal, revealed it to be a proper, honest-to-goodness lobster. What a great find!
But better was to come last week when Tess, who has been volunteering throughout the coastal festival and been an absolute boon to boot, found the most interesting sea creature I've ever seen.
I've only seen this family of animals once before, on a tour of the marine aquaria at Bangor University, and I immediately found their truly alien form captivating.
Sea spiders are not true spiders, but are an ancient form of marine arthropod - the largest family group on earth, containing insects, crustaceans and centipedes. They look superficially like spiders, with four pairs of legs, but that is all - I mean, they have no discernable body as such, just four pairs of legs joining together at a middle point and that's it!
They were being studied in Bangor, if memory serves me, as their skin had been discovered to be one of the most clean surfaces on earth - virtually sterile. At that time no one knew how these gangly little things managed to keep so scrupulously spotless, but it was thought to be linked to the physical structure of their skin. Imagine the possibilities if we were able to mimic this most incredible structure?
So there we are, a month of rambling about in rockpools over for another year. Some wonderful sights, shared with many hardy souls who braved the worst August could throw at us and came through it smiling.
I am now off for two weeks, so please excuse the gap in transmission. I will return in a fortnight with an account of bird watching in the English Channel. Now that has definitely put the mockers on me seeing anything on the ferry!