The shore visited this month for the group surveys were Llandudno North East shores (Creigiau Rhiwledyn/Little Orme’s head SSSI); Church island, Menai bridge (Glannau Aberdaron SSSI) and Traeth penllech (Bae Lerpwl/Liverpool Bay SPA). We also had two visits to the Penmon area (Arfordir Gogleddol Penmon SSSI/Glannau Penmon-Biwmares ) for our volunteers to catch-up and move over to the level 2 of the Shoresearch Cymru training course.

Surveys completed

Number of quadrats: 20; Number of volunteers:13 (new attendees - 1)

Seasonal findings the first patch of windy weather from now and into Sept brings in algae galore onto the shore, so this is a great time to get to know your species, and perhaps, when it’s kelp you’re finding inspect the holdfast for even more species. There are the mix of reds being brought in too which will be building, bleaching and, together with camo-kelp, they’ll provide the most vibrant natural colour for our strandlines later in the year.

Species features Star ascidians/chwistrell serennog (Botryllus schlosserii) can come in all sorts of colours, but were not sure we’ve come across quite so many of the various colour types on the same shore before. These colonial sea squirts can often be found under rocks, in crevices and on algae in wetter areas of the shore. There are other colonial sea squirts and we’ve been looking out for one in particular which looks very similar to the star ascidian, but doesn’t form the star-shaped groupings. This one is a relative; Botryllus leachii. We think we’ve found one clear example this month.   

The common whelk/cragen foch fwyaf (Buccinum undatum) is a less than common find on a rocky shore, but in its infancy or on certain shores you may well get the chance to see one living on shore. Our largest marine mollusc they have a white body with black specks and a not quite as exciting shell colour. These are large predators of worms and bivalves, but will also scavenge. We have seen them tucking into a dead lobster and cat shark together with crabs and prawns on a couple of occasions. These are also the molluscs which produce those eggmasses found on shore in the early months of the year called washballs or even monkey brains! Even these sized shells need to be inspected for occupancy by a hermit crab. 

On our Shoresearch forms we’re asked to look out for a few habitat types and circle if seen on shore. The green seaweed zone is one.  At Traeth penllech you couldn’t miss this zone it was so lush. It was covered in Ulva species (sea lettuces and gutweeds) and hidden under was plenty of sand binder too.

Certain species groupings (of flora and fauna) can be regularly found in different geographical areas due to common environmental conditions such as level of exposure, type of substrate, amount of freshwater influence etc and are called biotopes. The green seaweed zone can, in fact, be one of several types of biotopes. You can read more about this from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) pages here. The JNCC are UK-wide Government advisers on Nature Conservation.

The Shoresearch surveys are designed to help monitor some areas of shore by volunteers recording what they find using various types of surveys. Training is given to the volunteers who sign up to help us carry out these surveys.

We are liaising with other organisations to hone these surveys, so they become a vital tool in the help to monitor wildlife in our intertidal areas. Whilst they can also help to introduce volunteers to the species which live in this intertidal zone, the ideal is to build up some regular teams to regularly survey certain areas, building a clearer picture over the long term and in particular to keep an eye out for Invasive species and Climate change indicators.

If you would like to join us to volunteer your time at our repeated survey sites, then please get in touch. It is likely to be just one 2-3 hr session out on shore once every month at the least, as well as any time you can spare to do online training or website reading. 

Want to help with Shoresearch volunteering

Of course, feel free to help in other ways too via becoming a member, donating or buying a gift membership for someone. Thank you.

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