Reports of marine wildlife from all around the British Isles, with pollution incidents and conservation initiatives as they affect the flora and fauna of the NE Atlantic Ocean
 

19 June 2010
Stuart Exall and Casey Brehaut caught a Cornish Blackfish, Schedophilus medusophagus, in a gill net south of Lihou Island, off the west coast of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. The fish weighed 641 grams with a total length 445 mm
plus a fork length of 393 mm. 
This fish is a mesopelagic species from temperate waters of the north-eastern and north-western Atlantic and the western Mediterranean. It is the first known record from the Channel Islands caught at a depth of under seven metres.

19 June 2010 onwards
Basking Sharks, Cetorhinus maximus, continue to be seen from the shore off the Cornish coast. 

Basking Shark Video on Facebook (by Maria Munn)
Basking Sharks on flickr
BMLSS Basking Sharks

5 June 2010

The tenth Adur World Oceans Day went well in the marquee on Coronation Green, by Shoreham footbridge at the High Street end on the opening Saturday of the Adur Festival. Len Nevell of the British Marine Life Study Society was there with the usual exhibition of lobsters and crabs. 
 

4 June 2010
A Red Scorpionfish, Scorpaena scrofa, was caught inside Guernsey's 12 mile limit in a scallop dredge. This warm water and Mediterranean fish is a rare visitor to the English Channel. This small fish has have venomous spines on their dorsal, ventral and anal fins. Each spine has a separate venom gland at the base. 
Two Scorpaena scrofa have been recorded from Irish waters so far this year.   Scorpaena scrofa and Scorpaena porcus appear to be more frequently recorded over the last couple of decades than heretofore. Eleven of these records date from 1994 and the earliest from 1884. 

25 May 2010
Spiny Seahorse, Hippocampus guttulatus (=H. ramulosus)
Spiny Seahorses were spotted in Studland Bay, Dorset.

Pregnant Male Spiny Seahorse at Studland Bay on Facebook (by Neil Garrick-Maidment)
Seahorses Photo Album on Facebook (by Neil Garrick-Maidment)

BMLSS Seahorses

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FORUM NEWS

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean Mailing Groups

Marine Wildlife of the North-east Atlantic Ocean 
Yahoo Group
New Group: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Glaucus

British Marine Life Study Society 
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/glaucus/

Images can be uploaded to flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/glaucus/

British Marine Life on Wikia Science Discussion Groups
 

Wet Thumb (Marine Aquariology) Forum Link
 
 

Photographers submitting pictures should indicate if they wish them to be considered for inclusion as confirming permission takes work and time and can delay publication of the news bulletins. 
 

Click on the album for more links (On-line link)

June 2009
 

Not just a cookery book: you have to go down to the shore and catch or collect the food yourself. The 240 page hardback book (with an index) is exceptionally well produced in quality of the binding, paper as well as the quality of writing, information and clear useful colour photographs. It is well organised into nine chapters:

Starting Out:  Conservation and Equipment, including the first paper published instructions on how to construct a shrimp net (push-net). 

Foraging:  Lots of useful and essential information about the tides, weather, safety and what to wear. 

Rule Book: This is the bravest inclusion. John Wright attempts (better than anyone so far) to explain the rules, law and ethics of seashore collection, what you are allowed and not allowed to do. It is worth buying the book for this chapter alone.

The Flowering Plants
The Seaweeds
The Molluscs
The Crustaceans

All the expected species and some unlikely edible candidates are included and each is given two pages. Very informative and lots of information I did not already know. John Wright conducted his research first hand and we shrimped together on Southwick Beach with Peter Talbot-Elsden (as shown in my photograph, not in the book).

The Recipes:  Well I would omit the chilli in the Potted Shrimp. After collecting the food, I am usually a wee bit tired and this chapter should be for your partner. Let me know how you get on?

The home-made shrimp net on page 17 is an identical design to mine, the one used by John Wright before he made his own on our expeditions at Southwick, and the one used by Charlie Dimmick on River Walks filmed on nearby Lancing beach.

Conclusion: Highly recommended, essential purchase ***** (highest five star rating).

Kimmeridge Tidings

Autumn 2009
http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/c2/uploads/tidingsautumn09web.pdf

Up to date with all the latest happenings at our Purbeck Marine Wildlife Reserve in Kimmeridge.
 

VIVARIUM
by Peter Stiles
Publisher: Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon

Philip Henry Gosse was a popular naturalist who moved to Victorian Ilfracombe and wrote his natural science book ‘A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast’. He later designed the first public aquarium, which opened in London. His activities also attracted other naturalists, including Charles Darwin and novelist George Eliot.

This book celebrates the link between Philip Henry Gosse and his rockpool adventures in Devon and contains lots of information about the life of this self-taught Victorian scientist and writer.

in conjunction with an Exhibition that finished on 25 April 2009.
 

Marine Fisheries Science Yearbook  2008/2009

Publisher:  defra

href="http://archive.defra.gov.uk/search/results.htm?cx=014361324438485032053%3Aljunwq2pe_y&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=Marine+Fisheries+Science+">To obtain a copy from the defra web site, click on this text
 
 
 

Sharks in British Seas Richard Peirce 138 pages, colour illustrations, line drawings, colour & b/w photos. Lots of newspaper reports. Publisher:  Shark Cornwall Softcover | 2008 | £9.99 ISBN: 978-0-955869402

Seashore by Lucy Beckett-Bowman Consultant: Andy Horton Usborne Publishing   £3.99 Usborne Beginners Series Level One (very young children) ISBN 978-0-7460-8864-7 BMLSS Notes for a Primary School Teacher

Whales & Dolphins
of the European Atlantic
The Bay of Biscay, English Channel, Celtic Sea and coastal SW Ireland
by Dylan Walker and Graeme Cresswell
with the illustrations by Robert Still
WILDGuides  2008
£ 12.00 (includes standard UK P&P)
ISBN:  978-1-903657-31-7

This is the second fully revised and updated edition of this comprehensive guide to the identification of whales, dolphins and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) in the European Atlantic. Until very recently, most researchers and whale-watchers were unaware of the great variety of cetaceans that can be seen so close to the shores of western Europe. Indeed, it is only during the last decade, when detailed cetacean surveys have been carried out in earnest, that we have discovered how important this area is for cetacean biodiversity.

This field guide describes all of the 31 species of whale, dolphin and porpoise that have occurred in the European Atlantic. 
 

BMLSS Cetacean Book Reviews

 
The Gulf Stream
by Bruno Voituriez
Publisher:  UNESCO 
ISBN:  92-3-103995-4 
222 pages, figures, glossary, bibliography

The Gulf Stream
Amid contemporary scenarios of potential climatic catastrophes and global warming that might be imagined to bring a new ice age, the powerful image of the Gulf Stream rising from the Florida Straits and flowing to the north Atlantic inevitably provokes questions about its ecological significance and whether it might ever stop.
 

Coastal Plankton
Photo Guide for European Seas

by Otto Larink & Wilfried Westheide
reviewed by Wim van Egmond
 
 

Seashore (Collins New Naturalist) (Paperback) by Peter Hayward Collins 2004 ISBN:  0-00-220031-7 Amazon Web Site

Paperback. Pp 288. Colour & b/w photographs, illustrations, charts, maps and bibliography. Fine copy. "New Naturalist" Seashore is a comprehensive, authoritative account of the natural history of the seashore.
 

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