20th January 2007
Leslie Collins, vice-chairman of the Group, delighted a large audience (57) with his fascinating narrative on his favourite pictures as he shared a lifetime of local experience in Gweek.
An active quay with timber carts, lime kilns and sailing barges, the post office and people from many local families sprang to life again.
A special feature has been to record this invaluable record for posterity!
Saturday, 26th February 2011
“You should clean your bottom every year”! Australians and New Zealanders are known for plain speaking, but this seemed unnecessarily rude. However, just to clarify, they were talking in this instance about the hull of your boat. The point was quickly driven home by an underwater film, taken in N.France, which showed a hull so thickly coated with weeds and invertebrates that it looked like a sagging roll of shaggy carpet. Boat fouling is a worldwide problem and marinas and harbours are important staging posts in the process, because hulls, piers and jetties provide numerous firm surfaces on which sessile plants and animals can gain a foothold.
31st March 2012
Of the 7 species of marine turtles, 3 are seen regularly in UK waters: the Leatherback, Loggerhead and Kemp’s Ridley turtles. However, Britain also has interests in overseas waters, such as the Caribbean, and so the work of the Marine Turtle Research Group of Exeter University, based at Tremough, encompasses the world’s oceans. For our speaker, Dr Matthew Witt, the principal study area has been the beaches of Gabon, West Africa. Secluded and little frequented, (although with oilfields offshore), these are the nesting grounds for the world’s largest population of Leatherback turtles.
5th December 2009
Nare Point, at the south-east corner of the Helford estuary, appears to be unremarkable, just another of the many Cornish headlands although with a look-out post on top. But if an author had decided to weave a story about it, such as was about to be told by our two speakers from the National Coastwatch Institution, Paul Phillips and Len Jepp, he would be accused of having a fevered imagination.
Thursday, 1st April 2010
The beach in front of the Ferryboat Inn resembled a market day, with a group of colourful tables, a banner and a leaflet stand, all weighted by heavy rocks against the brisk, rather chilly wind. Abby Crosby, with Emma and other volunteers, had brought her displays for the Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s ‘Your Shore’ Project, teaming up with Ruth Williams’ ‘Seashore Safari’; and so there was no lack of expert knowledge as people crowded round the tables to look in the tanks and trays at live creatures collected from nearby rock pools.
Monday, 18th April 2011
If shellfish, crabs and other marine creatures have an early warning system, it must have clicked on ‘Red Alert’ today as the Seashore Safari got underway. But to no avail. A horde of searchers, 30 adults and 45 children, with ages ranging from 2 to 80, was advancing over the rocks, armed with nets and buckets. There was little chance of any creature remaining undetected as sharp eyes and quick hands and nets probed the rock pools and watery gullies; and soon treasured finds were being placed in the buckets and carried to Ruth for identification.
Sunday, 6th September 2009
Over 30 friends and members of the Helford MCG gathered at Mawgan Village Hall for an evening “bat talk and walk”. Dr Carol Williams, with her characteristic enthusiasm, delivered a 30 min. crash course in bat identification, life-cycle and habits before we ventured out into the gathering gloom assembling in the woodland car park on the Trelowarren Estate. Bat detectors swung into action immediately and to our delight we heard several pipistrelle bats as they hunted for insects overhead using their stuttering echo-location calls.
