Seashore. Nick Baker

stuff for exploring with

      To explore the seashore doesn’t require much equipment. Admittedly you will need to give a little thought to what you take with you, but the good news is that most of it can be improvised and made at home.

      Big stick Acts as an extra leg, which is very useful for prevent you from ending in the drink and, as an added bonus, useful for lifting up curtains of weed.

      Binoculars Not essential, but there is usually something to see out at sea. It may be some terns fishing, a passing seal, dolphin or even a basking shark!

      Burrow box (see page 44) A home-made tank that allows you to watch burrowing creatures in action. A smaller one works well for looking at smaller water creatures, especially in conjunction with a magnifying lens.

      Clear plastic robust pots I find these useful when collecting frail and brittle specimens such as delicate shells, skate and ray egg cases, and sea urchins.

      Garden fork A small gardener’s fork is easy to carry around, but if you are going for big worms and doing a lot of under-the-sand investigations then a large fork will be a better bet.

      Magnifying lens Useful to any naturalist, anywhere!

      Mirror on a stick (see page 13) Handy little home-made device for looking underneath overhangs and ledges without cutting your knees on barnacles or by falling in. A whole new perspective on rock pools!

      Nets A good robust net is vital. Forget those flimsy coloured ones stuffed in the end of a bamboo cane found for sale in most beach shacks – they are good for nothing!

      Non-slip, free-draining shoes/sandals Stops slippage, barnacle cuts on the toes and saves pain in case of treading on hidden glass or sea urchin spines. And if they drain, they are easily washed and won’t stink the house out.

      Plastic tank Forget the traditional plastic bucket. It doesn’t have clear sides and so you can’t see in. Instead, take with you a small clear plastic tank. Now you can see any animals you catch at their level.

      Plastic Zip-loc bags Versatile and invaluable, you can put in them everything from pellets and smelly specimens to shells or your lunch.

      Small torch Useful for illuminating those dark cracks and crevices in rocks.

      Sun block The combination of exposed environments and the way the Sun bounces back off the water is dangerous. You will burn very quickly and easily, so slap it on!

      Towel Things do get wet that shouldn’t and that could be you or some equipment. Can also be used as a shade to protect living specimens from the sun.

      Back pack To put it all in!

       Rock pools

      I still can’t resist peering into these puddles of sea water or turning over a rock. The addiction is simple and this habitat is one of the most exciting and surprising places on planet Earth. To this day, almost every stone I turn reveals another creature that I have never seen before.

      Each rock pool is unique. Those higher up the beach will be exposed for longer, and on a hot sunny day they will experience evaporation, meaning the water gets saltier. This, in turn, means less oxygen in the water for the creatures to breath. If it rains, the pools can get diluted to the point of almost being fresh water; this is very stressful for animals that are used to salty water. So, as a result, these rock pools are where the beach’s real tough nuts hang out; the rock pool specialists.

      The further down the shore you go, the less time is spent isolated from the sea and so the more stable the conditions. Here you will tend to find a greater variety of life, and in the very last pools to be exposed at the lowest Spring tides, you may even find truly ocean-going creatures that simply get caught out.

      Over the course of the seasons, life in the pools changes and as well as year-round residents, some creatures make migrations to and from the rock pools to deeper water. Every tide that sweeps over the beach and then retreats again can bring with it fresh surprises, so you can never be totally sure of what you may find.

      I always find that animals and plants that live underwater tend to look pretty flat, boring or just plain uncomfortable out of it. Nowhere is this more obvious than at the seaside ‘rock pooling’. So instead of turning over stone after stone you can make a naturalist’s version of a dentist’s mirror to allow you to look under overhanging rocks and in crevices. I call this quite simply a mirror on a stick.

       Handy stuff: mirror on a stick

      Use this extended mirror to bounce light into the shadows. I find it one of the best ways to find egg cases of dog whelks and other creatures that want to keep out of harm’s way.

       YOU WILL NEED

       > thick, but bendable wire

       > travel mirror

       > gaffer tape

       > scissors

      1 Take 6ocm of thick but bendable wire, fold it in half and twist.

      2 Bend one end at right angles and attach to a travel shaver’s mirror with reinforced gaffer tape (from a DIY shop). Make a more solid handle by binding the other end with the gaffer tape.

      3 Use the mirror to shed light on those otherwise dark and sinister cracks and crevices.

      4 Bend the wire into a right angle so you can look in all those rock pools. You can even get an idea of what the world is like looking up from a crab’s point of view.

       The baiting game

      I remember going ‘shrimping’ as a kid, hunting for prawns for my supper. This involved tossing bait into the pools and coming back later to scoop up the unfortunate crustaceans into a net. But I found that some of the bait was seemingly being pulled by an invisible force across the bottom of the pools while other pieces exploded into hundreds of fragments, which would then be shunted around rapidly, resembling underwater fireworks. Other bits had simply disappeared! Very soon I was gazing into the pools trying to figure out who the thieves were. It was at that moment I was hooked, and so I became a rock pool investigator.

      Many of the residents of rock pools are opportunists – they take whatever they can, whenever they can. They are the scavengers and the waste disposal units of the sea. By placing bait in the pools you are actually recreating something that happens