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The Fox Club meeting
held in the clubroom on Sunday October 8th was a great success. The
young members were taken rock pooling in the morning and came back to
the clubroom and made some drawings of the items found.
 A
strange little fish was found by Paul Semmens at the rock pooling event,
a Montague’s Seasnail,
Liparis montagui, which is
in the Lumpsucker and Snail Fish family, the
Cyclopteridae.
The lumpsucker family have pelvic suckers on the underside with which
they attach themselves to rocks or weeds and although related to the
Lumpsucker, which can grow to 51 cm in the male and 61 cm in the female,
the little Montague’s Seasnail can grow only to about 6 cm. The one
found was no more than about 3 cm. This was a rare find.
A dog walker found a
baby seal on the beach at Swanage Dorset at 8 o’clock in
the morning on Saturday 14th October. The umbilical was still attached,
but there was no sign of the mother, and it is believed that the mother
gave birth the night before, but was scared off because this is a very
busy beach. It’s very unusual for seals, especially pups, to be found in
this area, for there are no colonies nearby. As the mother could not be
found, the pup, which has been given the name Nala, was taken to The
Seal Sanctuary at Gweek in Cornwall. Nala was a little under weight, but
is responding well to the care at the sanctuary, and will be released
back into the sea when she is strong enough.
There were 9
reported sightings of Bottlenose Dolphins during October, these
seemed
to be of one pod moving around the coast from Falmouth on the south
coast to Chapel Porth on the north coast. They were off Battery Rocks
and Newlyn on the 4th, but had moved around to St Ives Bay by the 6th,
moving up the coast to Chapel Porth and back by the 8th. They were in
that area until the 12th, but the next sighting was off Pendennis Point,
Falmouth on the 20th. However they were back off Clodgy Point near St.
Ives by the 27th.
Three other reports
of dolphins were probably from the same pod of Bottlenose for they were
seen in areas near Falmouth and St. Ives at the correct times. There
were 3 reports of Common Dolphins, 2 sightings of the same pod off
Gwennap Head and Porthgwarra on the 29th, and another pod in rough seas
off Sennen on the 13th, The conditions made it difficult to estimate
numbers, but considered to be between 20 and 50.
Three Ocean Sunfish
sightings were off Mother Ivey’s Bay, St Ives Bay and the last one off
Botallack Head on the 26th. There was only one report of Basking Sharks
and that was 2 off The Lizard on the 16th. A Minke Whale was seen about
1 Km west of The Brisons on the 29th. Grey Seals were only reported
twice, one off Nare Head and 2 in Newquay Harbour. Hundreds of Goose
Barnacles were found washed up on a fishing float at Gunwallow Church
Cove. They were still alive, with feathery tentacles intermittently
reaching out of the shells.
I have not received the list of
Stranded animals for October. |
