A natural history of Runswick Bay

A polychaete

2012-01-25T07:37:00.003Z

Found lurking under a rock in a pool near Kettleness on during a sunny break on an anotherwise overcast January day.

Plaice

2012-01-19T15:15:00.000Z

This plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) was caught on the very day I mentioned to Mrs A.n.h.o.r.b. that in 10 years of almost daily beachwalks I had never seen one of the many shore anglers that fish from Runswick beach catch a fish. As one said, 'catch anything, no, just dfrowned a few worms'. We are about to buy some gear and start kayak fishing in the bay, so more fish, their diets and parasites (yummy) will be appearing on these virtual pages shortly.

Just lying on the beach...

2012-01-19T11:09:00.001Z

I can only presume mine were the first eyes to see this in the 190-odd million years since it died. No one on their right mind would leave this beautifully preserved 5cm ammonite where it lay. At first glance I thought it was a Dactyloceras, but now think it's a Zugodactylites braunianus. Feel free to disagree.

Fucus serratus with Spirorbis spirorbis

2011-12-18T16:05:00.001Z

Spirorbis are polychaete worms (the same class as lugworms, Arenicola marina) which live in these coiled shells. The body is a few milimetres long and on Runswick beach Sprirorbis are to be found on toothed wrack or bladder wrack. (Excellent photo by the Mrs.)

The ray's bream (Brama brama) are back.

2011-12-17T15:47:00.001Z

These fish aren't native to the North Sea but are now regularly reported washed up on Yorkshire shores.

October beach: wave torn laminaria

2011-12-17T15:33:00.001Z

These drifts of seaweed were almost a metre deep, almost entirely made up of Laminaria digitata. One of ANHORB's pics of Runswick Laminaria made it into a marine biology textbook in the USA.

Jet stacks

2011-10-14T14:39:00.002+01:00

Lugworm casts at low water springs.

2011-10-06T15:51:00.000+01:00

The casts of the polychaete worm Arenicola marina. The lugwormto most people - when the tide is this low anglers usually descend with forks and dig lugworm up for angling bait. More low, very low tide pics later this week.

And while most of Britain was lashed by storms...

2011-09-14T01:04:00.000+01:00

a full moon shone on a calm Runswick Bay.

When the gales next turn northerly it will be a different scene, but yesterday it was odd to be walking on a tranquil beach with ripples of couple of inches high masquerading as waves and odd gusts of breeze making catspaws on the sea. Runswick Bay faces north, while all the weather trouble was blowing from the south.

Summer seaweed: the colours, man.

2011-08-13T03:59:00.000+01:00

Wrack and pelvetia in their summer colours.

Move over Mary Anning, here's one big ammonite...

2011-08-10T09:52:00.001+01:00

A Sunday trip to the part of Runswick beach where fossils are to be found. Blog daughter casually anounces that she has 'found an ammonite'. Here it is...

A Hilderocas, about 6 inches across (which is one big ammonite), complete and with only a little rock matrix to be picked off. Good find. A passing tourist also found an icthyosaur vertebra.

Coming next, Jurassic CSI.

The bay today

2011-05-31T13:47:00.000+01:00

Taken from my upstairs window.

Not a great picture but blogged for a reason. I hope it is looked at and accepted A simple apology will suffice. And apology came there none.

Comment spammers

2011-05-15T13:38:00.000+01:00

have been leaving their flotsam around the blog, so comment moderation is on until they take the hint and find someone else to pester. I'll check in daily.

Splash zone: seaweed zoning on Runswick beach.

2011-05-10T09:39:00.000+01:00

At the top of the beach and the foot of the cliffs the rocks are wetted only at high tides, and often only at spring tides. This is the green seaweed of the splash zone at the foot of Kettleness cliffs. Coming next: a section down Runswick beach at lowtide looking at how the species of seaweeds change from high to low tide mark.

It's a lumpsucker (thank you all)

2011-05-08T10:51:00.000+01:00

I did first think it looked like a lumpsucker but had always thought they were smaller - turns out they are 5-50 cm in length. Shown here with mobile phone for scale.

Un-ID'd fish.

2011-05-06T15:13:00.002+01:00

A fossil-hunting trip and the blogdog was cavorting around something: a strikingly ugly and unidentified fish.

Mugshot:

A tail that wouldn't look out of place on a Ceolocanth...

Tubercles along its very white belly:

Underside:

Any ideas? Answers in comments please.

Go and visit

2011-03-24T08:09:00.000Z

'Yorkshire Coast', a blog about the wildlife hereabouts, with an entomological emphasis on butterflies and moths.

Anemone and tubeworms

2011-03-18T10:08:00.002Z

A low-tide beadlet anemone (Actinia equina) and tubeworms Pomatoceros triquiter.

Anemones tricolore

2011-03-18T10:04:00.000Z

Unusual: three anemones of different colors sitting cheek by anemone jowl on the same rock.

Dusk dog walk: unphotoshopped view of Kettleness.

2011-02-18T12:29:00.002Z

This caused a few days 'what the hell...?'

2011-02-18T12:25:00.003Z

until I realised that I did not need to add a small fishy head to a long tail. It's the remains of a thornback ray.

Witchstone.

2011-01-30T16:13:00.001Z

According to local legend if you keep a stone like this in your home, a witch may never cross the threshold.

The hole is made by a mollusc called a piddock, and a very small whelk has taken up residence on the edge of its cousin's former burrow.

December: frozen waterfall on the cliffs.

2011-01-16T04:47:00.000Z

Predation on the beach.

2011-01-16T04:45:00.002Z

Happy new year to ANHORB readers from me

2011-01-08T14:35:00.001Z

and the blogdog.

Ammonite: Cleviceras(?) plus fossil worm tracks.

2011-01-08T13:01:00.000Z

Kettleness in the snow.

2011-01-08T12:53:00.000Z

It was charming for a day and a pain in the teeth for the rest of the time.

Ascophyllum nodosum and red algae epiphytes.

2010-11-10T14:17:00.000Z

A patella perambulates.

2010-11-09T16:41:00.001Z

Limpets have a more exciting life than their sedentary appearance at low water might suggest.

Come high water they go off to scrape algae off the rock with their radula (a tongue like thing), which is their idea of a great meal.

The light trail on the shale shows this limpet's high tide exertions.

Limpet mountain range.

2010-11-09T16:22:00.000Z

Inverted invertebrates.

2010-11-03T08:00:00.001Z

I upended a flat rock on the rocky part of the beach to see what lay beneath. A right mixed colony of creatures. Crabs scuttled for cover but these animals, being sessile, stayed to be photographed.

And these...

I replaced the rock and went on my way. Names will be added after the morning blogdog walk, unless readers wish to fill in the blanks (especially the pale objects on the second pic) in comments.

What's inside an ammonite?

2010-11-02T11:48:00.002Z

Balls, apparently. You often see ammonites cracked or eroded open showing the mineralized body compartments (the phragmacone chambers) but I have never before seen these. The Hilderocas on the right of this pair has hard mineral balls in the middle of the fossil. The fossil is heavily flattened and coudn't be recovered in one piece: the balls do extend through the fossil.

Anyone any ideas? Hitherto unseen innards? An artifact of the fossilization process? The results of a prehistoric parasitic infection?

Jet stacks.

2010-10-24T18:09:00.001+01:00

The beach hereabouts was a good source of jet (fossilized monkey puzzle trees) and was extensively quarried in the past. This is what happened when the miners came across a lump of harder rock in the jet shale: they quarried around it, extracting as much of the jet-rich shale as was safe, leaving these stone mushrooms, shown with the blogdog for scale.

Porpoise washed up on Runswick beach.

2010-10-19T11:16:00.001+01:00

Out on the sail training boat James Cook we would often see porpoise in groups of two or three about a mile offshore. Lewis Clark (whose front door opens right onto Runswick beach) has just sent these pics of a recently washed up porpoise. For which many thanks.

Thanks for the link love: Deep Sea News.

2010-10-16T05:28:00.000+01:00

Hits on this quiet blog go through the ceiling. Who's linked here? Hmmm. Deep Sea News, a great blog run by real marine scientists. They like my pic of a barnacle-encrusted ammonite counterpart. (See previous post) Awwwww, guys! Always nice to get a shout from the pros.

Ammonite counterpart as cirri-pied-au-terre.

2010-10-14T14:31:00.000+01:00

This ammonite counterpart has made a rather splendid home for a colony of barnacles, a few limpets and a whelk.

Ammonite find...

2010-10-13T17:18:00.000+01:00

Here's the nodule in a piece of shale that fell from the cliff...

And here's the ammonite, revealed after giving the nodule a few judicious smacks with the rock hammer:

Crabs.

2010-10-10T17:39:00.001+01:00

Not sure what this one is: a new on to me on Runswick beach. The flattened legs and claws suggest a swimming crab, but this one (along with a load of tiny juveniles) was found under a rock.

Update: thanks to Chris and Susannah in comments: we have a Broad Clawed Porcelain Crab.

And this is a pair of shore crabs (Carcinus maenas), most vexed at having been interrupted while mating. Quite right too. Your blogger replaced the rock under which their crabby tryst was taking place, made his excuses and left.

ANHORB's blog dog.

2010-10-08T15:50:00.002+01:00

It's time to give a bark out to the reason for this blog's recent increase in posting. Meet Smiggy, my 6 year old stepson's dog and my constant companion on Runswick Bay beach.

A tri-color border collie of boundless energy from the wonderful Whitby Dog Rescue. He loves the beach, and especially Laminaria digitata with a passion that defies explanation.

ANHORB is not about to become a dog blog, but I felt it only right to give my companion a moment in the bloglight since he makes the whole thing even more fun.

Peripatetic patella.

2010-10-08T15:04:00.001+01:00

Limpets usually like something solid to hold onto. Like this little commune on the seaward side of a rock exposed during today's very low tide:

This one obviously likes to travel: it made its home on a piece of driftwood that for today had come to rest across a temporary stream running down the beach:

Fishing line fouled laminaria holdfast.

2010-10-06T11:03:00.002+01:00

Walking the Runswick strandline I see (and often pick up) a lot of lost fishing line. This Laminaria holdfast was fouled with thick monifilament line and made me wonder how long this line persists washing around the seabed.

Partial answer: at least long enough for this tubeworm to construct a burrow around one of the pieces of line.

Gulls over a September sea

2010-10-02T12:40:00.001+01:00

Belemnites

2010-10-02T12:31:00.004+01:00

Laminaria saccharina holdfast

2010-07-11T22:58:00.005+01:00

With green seaweed (possibly Ulva) garnish.

Cod and diet (picture of fish innards advisory).

2010-07-05T22:44:00.006+01:00

Runswick has a cadre of anglers and the fish get shared round. This 5lb cod (Gadus morhua) came my way recently. And very nice its fillets were, too.

While at Liverpool University's marine biology station at Port Erin on the Isle of Man I did a project on cod diet so I had to have a look. This cod had been gorging on something's eggs:

Recent sightings...

2010-07-05T22:36:00.002+01:00

A conger eel (imaginitive Linnean binomial Conger conger) was washed up dead, and a canoist whose word I trust reported sighting a Minke whale (estimated length 8-10 feet) and a slick of mauve stinger jellyfish in the bay.

Jellyfish and lugworm casts.

2010-07-05T22:23:00.004+01:00

There have been a succession of warm, still days and the shallows at Runswick have been very clear. We usually see common moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) up to 50 cm in diameter, but the creature at the top of this pic is Pelagia noctiluca, the mauve stinger.

Seaweed flotsam

2010-06-20T19:58:00.003+01:00

A red algae and channel wrack.

June jellyfish: Aurelia aurita

2010-06-15T11:47:00.005+01:00

Found stranded this lunchtime and returned to a rockpool to await the evening high tide. More pics and posts from our sunny lunchtime walk along the beach later.

Laminaria jetsam from January northerlies.

2010-01-30T12:47:00.012Z

Piles of Laminaria digitata (with assorted wracks)

Holdfast detail:

Fronds:

Laminaria stipe (the stalk) with epiphytic red seaweed growing.

The bay today

2010-01-30T12:40:00.002Z

Because sometimes you just have to post pretty pictures.

Fulmars at the Hob Holes

2010-01-26T20:36:00.007Z

Thanks to Andrew Darling for emailing these wonderful pics of the fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) that call the cliffs above the Hob Holes home:

These Runswick residents occasionally get territorial and swoop low over people walking on the beach. Fulmars have a very distinctive stiff-winged flight usually gliding close to the sea surface. Pics © Andrew Darling, please contact the photograpger for commercial reproduction rights.

New fossil find: help needed.

2010-01-21T13:53:00.006Z

The thing on the left is an ammonite (probably a young Hilderocas) but it's the object on the right that looks like a hunchbacked woodlouse that is new, and to me unknown. 9mm long, found in lower jurassic shale in a slab with lots of Hilderocas and Inoceramus. Any suggestions welcome.

Snowdrops flowering at Runswick bank top

2010-01-19T10:37:00.002Z

18th January 2010

Washed up Ray's bream.

2010-01-18T16:24:00.010Z

Thanks to Lewis Clarke of the Old Lifeboat House Runswick Bay for these pics. Both pics © Lewis Clark, please do not reproduce.

Thanks to Mike Sewell for the word that this is a Ray's Bream (Brama brama). Reports of other Ray's Bream strandings at here at glaucus.org.uk.

Don't forget our other exotic piscene find: the Runswick Bay Ratfish (Chimaera monstrosa).

Cliff erosion, January 2010

2010-01-17T14:44:00.002Z

And here's what the cliffs looked like in May:

Bream washed up at Runswick Bay

2010-01-17T14:27:00.007Z

we've just got a report of three sea bream not usually seen on this coast being washed up at Runswick, some weeks after a shoal washed up at Saltburn-by-the-Sea, 12 miles to the north. They were initially identified as black bream, a photo is on its way and will be posted asap. I had wondered if this rather mangled specimen (found in December) was a bream. Update: thanks to Mike for ID'ing it as a Ray's bream.

Bladder wrack (fucus vesiculosus)

2009-11-04T11:14:00.004Z

in close up. On sandstone rocks on the upper beach to the west of the Bay.

Parish notices: redesign due.

2009-11-03T12:59:00.002Z

We will shortly be off into the bowels of ANHORB to do a redesign. In the meanwhile this was the bay yesterday. Yes, that's early November at 54 deg north.

What's inside a barnacle?

2009-11-02T15:32:00.004Z

The things with folded legs you can see at the bottom right of this laminaria holdfast are what's hidden inside the barnacle shells that you usually only see closed on rocks when the tide is out. This laminaria must have been torn off its rock in the recent stormy weather. Below, holdfast detail:

Perfect belemnite...

2009-11-02T15:25:00.005Z

spotted on the one day I didn't take the rock hammer to the beach. If there is a palaeontological curse*, I would like to utter it now.

*I'd also like to know what it is. Is there some kind of arcane oath that paleontologists yell when they hit thier thumb with a rock hammer or shatter a T-rex skull into fragments?

Fossil wood.

2009-10-27T14:25:00.002Z

On the west side of Runswick Bay the sandstone seam that tops the cliff has been extensively undercut and a lot of sandstone boulders have tumbled to the foreshore. There are some superb fossils to be found, but most (like this piece of fossilized wood) are in large chunks of stone and are irrecoverable.

Runswick Bay plesiosaurs...

2009-10-27T10:45:00.003Z

have a big brother (or sister) from Dorset.

The Natural History Museum's pliosaur is from the Kettleness alum quarries at the eastern end of Runswick Bay. On the Today Programme this morning a palaeontologist said that little is known about plesiosaurs because so few complete specimens have been found.

Those of us lucky enough to live here clearly have a duty to be on the beach and cliffs looking at the weathering and rock falls. Dorset's pliosaur is reckoned to be 16 metres long and said to be one of the greatest top predators ever that 'would make T rex look like a kitten'.

Recent finds...

2009-10-24T14:38:00.003+01:00

I think we've found a chunk of a plesiosaur/icthyosaur spine: the Natural History Museum are examining photos. A few nice ammonites and a rare example of a small crinoid stem. Photos to come. It's lashing down and blowing a gale this weekend so there should be some good cliff falls and maybe some better fossils.

Remember the Runswick Bay ratfish?

2009-09-13T21:15:00.003+01:00

Which washed up here last year? Well the ugly but endearing chap has made it into Marine Wildlife News. A little bit of fame for our small but beautiful bay and to anyone interested in what lives and washes up on our beaches, Mr Horton's site should be bookmarked.

PS if you find one of these things do not do as I did and walk home swinging it by its tail. The dorsal spine is venomous.

Gryphea (Devil's toenail) fossil.

2009-09-07T16:36:00.009+01:00

Now here's a find (by my better half). There are millions of them 15 miles up the coast at Redcar but they are relatively infrequent finds at Runswick. This one has been tumbled around in beach pebbles for a while. It's a bivalve, a jurassic oyster relative and you usually find the curved lower shell which gives the fossil its nickname, but this one has some intriguing structures fossilisised on the gap where the flat upper shell would be: look for the scallioped structures which plug the usually hollow open end of the lower shell. If any Gryphaeaologists can comment, I'd be grateful. There is too much of the scalloped edge visible for it simply to be the upper valve of the Gryphaea.

Here's the thing sideways on:

Gryphaea arcuata (Lamarck 1801) found lower Jurassic. They were believed to relieve rheumatism in humans and sore backs in horses.

Shore crab (Carcinus maenas)

2009-09-07T15:46:00.005+01:00

In the home rockpool...

and in the hand.

The first northerlies of September

2009-09-03T20:01:00.001+01:00

are making the sea rough and whipping up some waves even in sheltered Runswick Bay. It has been very still and calm in the last month with little washed up. We'll be on the beach tomorrow to see what the rougher weather has brought.

Fish species in Runswick Bay.

2009-08-31T12:04:00.006+01:00

Sunday saw the annual Runswick Bay fishing contest. 16 boats took part and went after mid-water and bottom-feeding species with a variety of baits, feathers and pirks.

The species brought up for the weigh in were cod (Gadus morhua), whiting (Merlangius merlangus), mackerel (Scomber scombrus), pollock (Pollachius pollachius), a solitary gurnard (Eutrigla gurnadus) and a rather lovely ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta), which despite having my camera I somehow managed not to photograph.

Shore anglers say that they regularly catch sea bass from the beach. There are also greater weever fish in the bay: a kayak angler was stung by one, became too disorientated to paddle and needed rescuing by the Rnswick Bay Rescue Boat.

Runswick fossil icthyosaur skull.

2009-08-26T12:08:00.004+01:00

This one - a juvenile from the size - is in Whitby Museum, which has a superb collection of local Jurassic fossils, many from Runswick Bay. This shows how hard it is for the untrained eye to pick out a fossil beyond the obvious ammonites and belemnites. We're getting back to the living stuff this week.

Ammonite in nodule.

2009-08-21T11:40:00.003+01:00

The ammonite was showing through the edge of a hard nodule. I drilled the nodule around its edges using a masonry bit and cracked it open with a chisel. Much of the shell has been replaced by crystals.

Close up: note the clean shell spiral at the centre.

ELWS: the lowest low water I have ever seen.

2009-08-21T11:30:00.004+01:00

I can't ever remember seeing this much beach exposed at low tide. ELWS means 'extreme low water springs', the datum at which low tide is fixed on maritime charts.

Boulder clay cliffs 11 months apart.

2009-05-08T20:57:00.002+01:00

May 2009

June 2008

What is this?

2009-05-08T18:23:00.003+01:00

It was not a hot day this pic was taken in January), there was no runoff suggesting the rockpool was contaminated and I wondered if it was some early gamete shedding. It wasn't crystallized out salt either.

Nodule north of Runswick Bay.

2009-05-08T18:14:00.003+01:00

The shale is full of these inclusions. They're much harder than the surrounding rock. Crack some and you get lovely whole 3d ammonites (most around here and flattened and beyond recovery) , crack others and you get a crystralline interior that smells of oil. Try and crack others and you blunt your rock hammer and get a jarred arm.

More littoral blogging...

2009-03-28T11:48:00.003Z

The Coastal Zone, all about the lovely Isle of Wight (about where I have fossil envy). Go see Ron's blog now.

Meanwhile here we are expecting force 8-9 onshore winds and a 5.6 metre tide, so I shall pop down and have a look.

Two belemnites, a piece of fossilized wood

2009-03-25T20:04:00.004Z

And a limpet (Patella sp.) which, if has any thoughts can only be meditating on mortality when faced with such a nearby fossilscape.

Now clear off

2009-03-12T20:52:00.000Z

and visit Earthstudent.

About 3 feet long, all on the same plane in jurassic shale

2009-03-12T20:47:00.003Z

...not excatavatable and I know I'm not the first person to see it, but (paleontologists please) do we have a part of a skeleton here?

Zonation illustrated on a sea wall at low spring tide.

2009-03-12T20:01:00.002Z

Squiggles in Jurassic shale (2)

2009-03-12T18:46:00.004Z

Ha! Another Jurassic beach and what have we here?More squiggles in the shale, similar to these.

Ragworm...

2009-03-12T18:41:00.004Z

Nereis, methinks or maybe Hediste diversicolor. Caught in a small rockpool on a sunny day.Just look at the difference in the colours of the animal out of the water and the green of the immersed half. One of these little buggers bit me when I was a kid fishing and they can deliver quite a nip. I was trying to shove a hook through, so fair do's. And if this picture is anything to go by, ragworm spring was in the air... Yep, estuary ragworm boys crawl around releasing sperm at spring tides (it was a spring tide today) which the females them collect. That done, this chap will die.

Squiggles in Jurassic shale: help needed.

2009-01-31T16:23:00.003Z

Is there a living creature that digs channels in Jurassic shale beaches on the North Yorkshire coast to cruelly mislead me, or could these be Jurassic critter tracks?

Blogkeeping.

2009-01-31T16:07:00.002Z

Fellow Yorkshire nature blogger Sheffield Wildlife has started a multi-user blog for birders called Yorkshire Birders. It is just out of the egg. Go visit and contribute.

Sociable limpets.

2009-01-31T16:00:00.005Z

You can't help but get the impression that they like company when hunkered down at low tide. Compare and contrast to Limpet City, where the creatures seem to be more uniformly distributed over the surface in a bid for limpetsraum. Look at how bare the rock is.Either the limpets do an excellent job of eating every alga that tries to grow, the rock is not a suitable substrate for seaweed holdfasts to penetrate or it's just too bashed about by the North Sea for the wrack that grows everywhere else to settle. Maybe all three. It'd be interesting to erect a limpet-proof fence around a section of this rock flat to see what happens in the enclosure.

Pyritical ammonite.

2009-01-31T15:55:00.001Z

Hilderocas sp., flattened, eroded and part-gilded in iron pyrites.

Lugworms.

2009-01-31T15:42:00.006Z

A low spring tide, so the fishermen were out in force digging for...Lugworms, Arenicola marina. These polychaetes live in a u shaped burrow in the sand and filter food particles out of the sediment. They can make up a third of the biomass of a sandy beach.
Humans having dug holes and left piles of sand around, some oystercatchers came and had a scavenge.

Thanks Cliff...

2009-01-02T19:36:00.002Z

Thornton for putting me right on my seaweeds in comments. This is one of the things I love about blogging: that people more knowledgable than myself can correct my mistakes. I am very aware that my identification of seaweeds is lacking and a better field guide is on the wishlist.

Now here's a smart idea...

2008-12-29T23:01:00.003Z

courtesy of the BBC science and environment webpage. One of those ideas that is so obvious that it doesn't occur to you until someone points it out. Examine coastal erosion by comparing old works of art with modern pics. Hereabouts we have the fantastic work late 19th/early 20th century photographs of Frank Meadow Sutcliffe, prints available from the Sutcliffe Gallery in Whitby.

The Sutcliffe pics of Runswick Bay are here. This is also Runswick and one of my favourite Sutcliffes, filed under 'children'. A child launching a model sailing boat into the calm water at low tide.

UK Natural History Blogger (2)

2008-12-22T17:42:00.003Z

now go and read Beating the Bounds. The writer is a self-confessed:

Father of three, teacher of mathematics, cantankerous git.Based in Silverdale near Lancaster with woods, estuaries, Morecambe Bay, limestone hills and pavements, and reed filled mosses all on the doorstep; a view of the Howgill fells from upstairs windows on a good day.

He has a great eye for photographs, especially winter close-ups.

And if you're a UK natural history blogger, go and join the webring.

Winter solstice 2008

2008-12-21T20:09:00.005Z

Yes, more natural history is coming, but it's taking some time top plan. A USB camera eyepiece for my microscope. More field guides (and thank you Dispersal of Darwin for the Collins Pocket Guide to the Sea Shore, your kindness has not been forgotten and I am only waiting to find the suitable present in return) bought and transects planned. As I said before, it's time to stop going 'oooh look at that' (although there will be some of that) and time to get scientific on this beach's ass.

In the meantime, happy solstice. The days start getting longer tomorrow.

UK Natural History Bloggers

2008-12-20T20:00:00.001Z

have a webring to bring us together a reassure us we're not doing this in isolation. So go and have a look at another Yorkshire natural history blog Sheffield Wildlife.

Oh good fossil site...

2008-12-19T23:23:00.003Z

e-fossils, brought to you by Nev and Mark who occasionally visit Runswick (and have no doubt found some of the fine fat ammonites that should have been mine, but they clearly love their fossiling, so can be forgiven) so if you love fossils click over and have a look.

And if you're into jurassic fossils don't forget...

Latest strange shape in the rocks (probably a cycad frond).

Back end of a belemnite: the experts are baffled. UnID'd fossil counterpart.

Another jurassic fossil unknown. Self explanatory.

Original and best pliosaur. One of those is just waiting for me to find.

I love blogs (jurassic fossil bivalve mollusc special edition). In which we celebrate the greatness that is help from more knowledgeable strangers over the internet.

Cliff erosion pics...

2008-12-19T18:22:00.000Z

December 2008

September 2008

June

April

January

December beach view...

2008-12-19T18:04:00.002Z

The recent northerlies have brought a lot of sand onto the beach, covering up the beds of rocks that are usually exposed. I'll photograph the beach from here again in spring and summer to illustrate the different beach profiles through the seasons.

Today.

2008-11-22T16:52:00.003Z

Grandoise, but no weather to be on a beach naturalizing.

Limpet city.

2008-11-17T21:01:00.006Z

This boulder has been home to limpets (Patella sp) for a long time judging by the many deep scars. The rock is completely seaweed free: the limpets probably graze down any seaweed that grow on its surface. I'd like to know how secure a home this is: I'm going to take my GPS down and fix its position to find out if the winter storms move up around the beach. I'm also going to take my hand-bearing compass for a second fix. I've been a sailor long enough to have seen some very whimsical positions come from GPS machines.

November sky.

2008-11-17T20:46:00.002Z

The weather has been disgusting, the skies grey, the light flat. I have been a fairweather natural historian and that will never do. This week I will go down to the sea again (what a good line, someone should use it for a poem) and resume. The cliffs will have eroded, the winter tides should have pushed more sand ashore and it's time to mark out some permanent quadrats on the beach and record how the seaweeds and shelly things change over the course of the year.

Lugworm casts, Arenicola marina

2008-10-20T23:21:00.002+01:00

Photographed at low tide.

Runswick Bay from the sea.

2008-10-12T21:08:00.000+01:00

Kettleness headland to the left.