Rock Pools & Fossils

Today dawned with bright sunshine, a light southerly wind, and a low tide - perfect for a couple of hours wandering amongst the rock pools along the Ormsaigbeg shore. A child-like pastime perhaps - we did leave the grandchildren's nets and the buckets behind - but such fun.

We've explored these rock pools so often we know where to find the slightly special things, but every pool has its own character, and you never know what you will find. There are some which are full of rotting kelp, their water milky and smelly, and others which are clear as crystal and populated by small fish, shrimps, anemones, whelks (the English call them winkles), tops, hermit crabs, and every sort of brilliantly-coloured weed.

Sea urchins can be difficult to find, but there's a pool where you are guaranteed to find some. It doesn't seem a likely pool as it's shallow and exposed, and the urchins are dark against the pale encrustation that covers its rock bottom, but it has a number of boulders in it which offer good hiding places. To camouflage themselves, the urchins carry around a selection of weed, using it rather like an umbrella, often with a whelk or two attached to add style.

If you tire of the living, there's always the dead: this coast has an amazing selection of marine fossils on view, dating back some 130 million years, like this beautifully-preserved nautilus the size of a soup plate. Some sections of our walk this morning were across a fossil sea floor covered with the remains of algal structures, sponges and molluscs.