"The 20th of April is an important day for me, as it is my birthday. We all like to do something memorable and fun to mark the day so when an intertidal survey was advertised, I booked myself on-questionable choice you say, no I say. It lived up to all my requirements of being fun and memorable and I can also add to that educational and very friendly.
The aim of the session which lasts about 3 hours is to collect data on the variety of wildlife found on the beach surveyed. This is then collated and used by the Wildlife Trust to help protect marine wildlife. It is a citizen science project that also teaches the attendees to recognise some of the amazing variety of plants and animals that live on our shores. Our very friendly and knowledgeable leaders: Emily and Caitlin divided us into groups of three. We were given guidebooks to help us identify species and forms to fill out on what we found; we also took photos of each find.
Emily and Caitlin were on hand to help with identification and with informing us about the lives of flora and fauna we found. It was also lovely to chat with and get to know the others in my group and work together to classify and record what we found. Throughout the session, there were squeals of excitement when anyone found anything new (there were a lot of these) and Caitlin or Emily got us together to talk about what the other groups had found.
After hearing so much about the famous seagrasses, it was lovely to finally see them in the flesh: Zostera marina and Zostera noltei. We found Sand Mason worms, Keel worms, Sandhoppers, Ectocarpus seaweed and Netted Dog-whelk eggs and also the invasive Oyster Thief amongst many other things. We covered the upper, middle and lower shore and then came back to the promenade to debrief. I felt exhilarated and a little tired but also felt a sense of camaraderie that comes from working together as a team and a job well done.
