Adur was one of the UK leaders in presenting the fifteenth environmental exhibition of World Oceans Day on Coronation Green, Shoreham-by-Sea. The British Marine Life Study Society presented the usual exhibition of lobsters and crabs. The Friends of Shoreham Beach (FOSB) took an active role with their display of the wonders of Shoreham Beach. Wildlife writer Steve Savage presented the whale and dolphin exhibition. Nikki Hills on behalf of the Sussex Wildlife Trust produced an interactive display on the sea and seashore for the younger age group. Exhibitors are available to find the time to answer questions about marine life.
Other participants will include Southwick Camera Club with an exhibition of seascapes and marine life, and Shoreham Sea Scouts.
A juvenile male calf, but still massive, Humpback Whale, Megaptera novaengliae, weighing 8 tonnes with a length of 7 metres, was found dead floating close to shore at at Fishnish on the Isle of Mull. It was craned on to the shore for a post-mortem. Even at this size, it was dependent on its mother for nutrition. This was probably the first ever Humpback Whale washed up on Mull.
Large numbers of Bluefire Jellyfish, Cyanea lamarckii, were spotted on the falling tide at Padstow in north Cornwall.
One of the more interesting characteristics of this very wet spring were the numerous reports of very large jellyfish washed up on the southern and western shores of Britain. Almost all of them were the non-venomous Barrel Jellyfish, Rhizostoma octopus. Reports were received from all south-western coasts and many of them were seen in the sea and washed up on the shore of Dorset.
This blue specimen was a typical sized specimen as others were reported the size of dustbin lids. This was washed up at the Witterings, West Sussex. The most usual colour of this jellyfish is a creamy wide umbrella with trailing tentacles of cream and sometimes brownish-red.
A dead and scavenged Tuna was found washed up in the Fleet, Dorset. The fish was in too worn condition to identify it to species. Tuna are an uncommon visitor in summer in the English Channel.
A venomous Red Scorpion Fish, Scorpaena scrofa, was captured in pots off Plymouth. This benthic southern species is only rarely recorded in British seas. It is the spines on this bottom living predator that are venomous and in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic coast of Portugal it is a hazard to bathers.
A great day with friends from Coastwise North Devon at Westward Ho! produced a special find: a little Sand Sole, Pegusa lascaris, was caught in a push net at the edge of the sea.
The Sand Sole, Pegusa lascaris, was a particularly interesting discovery as this is a southern species and it is not often recorded in British seas. I do not know if this a rare fish in British seas or just rarely recorded?
An immigrant Asian Shore Crab, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, was discovered by Martin Burke in a rock pool by the Aberthaw Power Station, in south Wales. This small intertidal crab is a species of crab from East Asia. It has been introduced to several other shores, and is now an invasive species in North America and Europe. These crabs are known from the European mainland and have been reported in Guernsey, as far as we are aware this is the first record of Hemigrapsus on mainland GB and is therefore a significant record. Asian Shore Crab larvae are thought to have been introduced to European waters through discharge of ships' ballast water. It has since extended its range through natural larval dispersal by water currents. It is unclear how it reached the Channel Islands, but given the proximity of the abundant populations on the French coast, natural larval dispersal, hull fouling and association with oyster transportation are possibilities.
Coconuts (and other flotsam) washed up on Cornish beaches can host exotic ocean travellers all the way from the Caribbean Sea. A Coconut discovered on Newquay Beach, north Cornwall, was discovered to be hosting Goose Barnacles, Lepas anatifera, attached to the outer husk, and a species of Martesia piddock that had burrowed into the shell. These were identified as the vagrant and first British record of Martesia fragilis.
Beached wood and tree trunks may also contain other organisms like small crabs hitchhiking a ride or more likely burrowing Teredo (=shipworms) molluscs including the Big-eared Shipworm, Psiloteredo megotara, found in a tree trunk on Par Beach, south Cornwall.