Overview
 
 

Adur Coastal & Marine Reports 2009
 

28 March 2013
Three Harbour Porpoises, Phocoena phocoena, were seen off Seaford Esplanade (Splash Point). 

23 November 2011
An unprecedented pod of over seventy Bottle-nosed Dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, swam and leapt around David Lambert's fishing boat, 12 miles off Brighton, East Sussex. This world not be exceptionally newsworthy to the south and west of the British Isles, but off Sussex this is an unusual sighting, even more so during winter. 

9 November 2011
A White-beaked Dolphin, Lagenorhyncus albirostris, was observed by surveyors bow-riding their vessel about 15 miles south of Worthing. We had a small group of White-beaked Dolphins sighted some miles off shore between Eastbourne and Dieppe back in April this year. This species often bow-rides so it is interesting that both local sightings of these dolphins were bowriding. This species is not normally recorded in the English Channel.
 

25 October 2011
A waterspout was photographed off Bexhill, East Sussex. 

7 October 2009
A  3.7 kg (8 lb) European Lobster, Homarus gammarus  (= H. vulgaris), measured 75 cm (2 ft 6 in)  in length was caught in fisherman's pots off Hastings and given to the Blue Reef Aquarium in the Sussex town.

15 December 2008
A Harbour Porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, was washed up dead on the beach by Brooklands Boating Lake, east Worthing near the Lancing border. It was 1.5 metres long (adults attain a length of 2 metres). 

A gathering of forty Crows alerted me to a small wreck of Starfish, Asteria rubens, of several hundred were washed up on the strandline opposite the Burrells road. There were a frequent egg cases of the Lesser Spotted Dogfish, Scyliorhinus canicula, a few Whelks, Buccinum undatum, as well as the usual wreck of seaweed and Slipper Limpets, Crepidula fornicata. Out at sea there was a raft of about 200 of the smaller Gulls resting on the surface of the sea, 30 metres or so offshore. 

31 October 2008 & 1 November 2008
Bill Carter spotted a Common (or Harbour) Seal, Phoca vitulina, at Peacehaven (East Sussex). He first spotted the seal at 2:00 pm as he cycled along the Peacehaven undercliff promenade on  a warm sunny afternoon with a calm sea and the seal basking on the groyne.
Bill returned the following day and the seal was still there. The seal seemed more cautious and slipped into the sea which was right up to the groyne as it was high tide. The undercliff walk was quite busy with walkers and so the seal may have been disturbed by someone trying to get to close to it. It popped up a few yards offshore then dived again and appeared a hundred metres or so offshore, where it stayed for the quarter of an hour or so that Bill was there. It did occasionally dive for some lengths of time so it may have been feeding.

Sussex Marine Life Jottings (by Steve Savage)
This blog contains a full report with photographs

Bill Carter's "Faces of Sussex" Photographic Gallery

22 October 2008
An adult Common (or Harbour) Seal, Phoca vitulina, was hauled out on the bank of the River Adur bank near the Shoreham Airport, at 3.00 pm. A passer by said they saw the seal swim further up the estuary. The sighting occurred about an hour before high tide. 

5 October 2008
My family and I watched a Common (or Harbour) Seal, Phoca vitulina, off shore at Pevensey Bay in the evening, spending quite a bit of time under water and seemingly enjoying itself. It is not the first time it has been seen this year at the same spot, but I can't help wondering where it had been during the rough weather in the morning. The first time I have seen a seal there in 37 years.

20 September 2008 These large acorn barnacles were seen on rocks along side the Newhaven Harbour Arm. I think they are Balanus perforatus. This is a southern species that is found on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall and not usually recorded east of the Isle of Wight.  Report by Dr Gerald Legg (Booth Museum)

17 August 2008
Nine potentially Portuguese Man-o'-War, Physalia physalis, were washed up on the West Sussex coast. The creatures, which can give a nasty sting, were found on beaches at Bracklesham Bay, East Wittering, West Wittering and Selsey. 

Portuguese Man-o'-War are a jellyfish type type of colonial hydroid that are washed up on western shores and sometimes on the English Channel coast in small numbers in some (less than half) years. 
BMLSS Jellyfish and other Medusa
BMLSS Portuguese Man-o'-War
Sussex Report 2000

June 2008
A rare female Marbled Electric Ray, Torpedo marmorata, was captured in a trawl net by Worthing fisherman Brian Davey about eight miles off Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex.The ray which was about 60 cm long and can deliver a 220 volt electric shock. It was kept alive found a home at Brighton Sea Life Centre. 

This is the rarer of the two electric rays recorded in British seas and is extremely rare off Sussex. This fish can grow up to 60 cm in length. It is not known to breed in British seas and fish are likely to have migrated up the English Channel in summer.
BMLSS Sharks & Rays
Sussex Rare Fishes
BMLSS News Reports Spring 2008

15 June 2008
A seal was spotted in the River Adur lower estuary, first of all on the Sussex Wharf side of the river in the early evening from 8:30 pm. It then swam over to the scrapyard side (east of Monteum, where the fishing boats moor up and unload fish) and was seen for 45 minutes chasing after the fish in the river. The most likely species is the Common (or Harbour) Seal, Phoca vitulina. The tide height at 8:30 pm was 4.4 metres.

14 June 2008

Venue: Coronation Green, Shoreham-by-Sea
Admission: FREE
 
 

Adur was one of the UK leaders in presenting an environmental exhibition of World Oceans Day on Coronation Green, Shoreham-by-Sea, as part of the Adur Festival

11 May 2008
 

Perfect shrimping conditions were encountered on the morning low tide at Southwick Beach (1.2 metres at 10:40 am) on a sunny hazy day with an air temperature of 22.1 °C and a gentle swell. The haul included plentiful Brown Shrimps, Crangon crangon, with all three shrimpers getting more than enough for a meal each in under an hour, one fully grown Lesser Weever, Echiichthys vipera, and a few small ones, a few small Solenettes (Slipper Soles), Buglossidium luteum, a few Vernal Crabs, Liocarcinus vernalis, one damaged (missing a claw) Masked Crab, Corystes cassivelaunus, and two green Shore Crabs, Carcinus maenas.

5 May 2008
On Bank Holiday Monday, it felt warm for the first time this year as the temperature reached 20.0 °C at midday. The wind was from the north, veering to the south-east and falling to Force 2 by the low spring tide. 
Shoreham Weather

My first shrimping expedition of the year at Lancing produced a moderate amount of Brown Shrimps, Crangon crangon, plus one Lesser Weever, Echiichthys vipera, one small Solenette (Slipper Sole), Buglossidium luteum, two Vernal Crabs, Liocarcinus vernalis, and two South-clawed Hermit Crabs, Diogenes pugilator, amongst more weed than is usual at the beginning of May. 

24 April 2008
A Short-snouted Seahorse*, Hippocampus hippocampus, was discovered on the filtration plant at Shoreham Harbour. It was alive when found but died shortly afterwards. (*assumed to be this species)

21 March 2008
A summer plumaged Black necked Grebe was seen offshore at Ovingdean in the early evening with the first winter female Surf Scoter still present at dusk. Also a couple of Red throated Divers and Great Crested Grebes were observed on the sea.

The Birds of Sussex web site (hosted by Ian Barnard) is dedicated to all aspects of Birds and Birding in the County of Sussex. It contains a database of birds seen in Sussex. For the commoner species a link is provided to photographs where available.

17 March 2008
After the storms and the report of a mass stranding of Common Starfish, Asterias rubens, on Brighton Beach, I inspected the strandline on Shoreham Beach. All along the strandline there was a greater number of hundreds of thousands of Slipper Limpets and tens of thousands of Whelk egg balls amongst the usual mixed shell collection including Whelks and Oysters and frequent lumps of Tertiary Lignite (sea coal). One Undulate Ray eggcase looked in good condition and was placed in an aquarium in case the embryo was still alive.  There were a few dozen dead Starfish at the Old Fort, but not the hundreds reported from Brighton beach. 

Starfish on the beach in Kent (March 2008)
BMLSS Common Starfish
BMLSS Oyster & the Slipper Limpet

5 March 2008
Two Ravens were seen in the smaller car park at West Breakwater, Newhaven (TV 447999)
attracted by the gulls creating a commotion following a man emptying a bag of bread onto the ground. The Kittiwake colony to the west of Newhaven Fort contained about 40 birds.
Raven Image
Kittiwakes Image

February 2008
Up until now it has been assumed that the Common Seals, Phoca vitulina, that we see along the Sussex coast are either from the Wash area or from the Chichester colony. Grey Seals, Halichoerus grypus, have been assumed to come from either further west or east. However a Common Seal tagged in 2007 by the University of Rochelle crossed the English Channel and swam east along the Sussex coast.

23 January 2008
 

Two 'Mermaid's Purses', containing the eggs or young of the Lesser-spotted Dogfish, Scyliorhinus canicula, were found lying amongst the timber and seaweed debris on the strandline of Shoreham Beach. 

22 January 2008
 

A dead Short-snouted Seahorse, Hippocampus hippocampus, was discovered by Craig Vernoit on Brighton Beach just to the east of Brighton Marina amongst tonnes of timber from the Greek-registered Ice Prince.
BMLSS Seahorses

21 January 2008
 

Timber from the Greek-registered Ice Prince, which sank about 26 miles (42 km) off Dorset after a storm on 15 January 2008, began getting washed up on Worthing Beach in the evening of 18 January 2008 and and tonnes of pine planks littered the Sussex beaches from 20 January 2008. The usual debris was on the strandline including the eggcase of an Undulate Ray, Raja undulata. It measured 67 mm long and 48 mm wide. 
A Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, was washed up dead west of Brighton Marina. 
BMLSS Eggcases
BMLSS Whales & Dolphins (by Steve Savage)
Adur Coastal 2008

6 January 2008
A Common Seal, Phoca vitulina, was spotted in the River Ouse near Lewes.

 Link to the Sussex Marine Life Reports for 2007

Marine Life of Sussex 2006

Sussex Sea Fisheries District Committee

Adur Coastal 2007