What’s beneath your feet? (Dr Tegwyn Harris)

Bycharli

6th June 2012

Bar beach, Helford Passage

On a slightly blustery afternoon an intrepid group of Helford VMCA members headed out on to Bar Beach to explore the squidgy, muddy but intriguing world living beneath our feet. The event was planned to find, identify and learn a little more about some of the unusual critters to be found hidden in the muddy shores of the Helford River. We all see the mud shores, but to many of us they usually look muddy, flat and not terribly alive, so on this afternoon Tegwyn set out to prove just how much life was there, if only you open your eyes and look.

At the start of the event we promptly headed down to the bottom of the shore to begin our exploration. The first thing you notice is that the mud isn’t flat and barren – it is covered in holes, burrows, trails, mounds and strange little structures created by all of the critters living within it. With a few volunteers armed with spades, trowels and buckets it didn’t take long for us to start finding out what had made them. Tegwyn was brilliant, pitching information about the creatures we found at a level understandable by everyone from young children to marine scientists and featuring fantastic analogies including the equivalent of living on essence of fish and chips and body-snatching Hollywood aliens! We found masked crabs (Corystes cassivelaunus) which burrow into the sediment and breathe through a filtering snorkel formed from two antennae, common shore crabs (Carcinus maenas) whose body had been taken over by a parasitic barnacle which occupies its tissues and a range of bristle worms which, although often overlooked, are equally as beautiful and quirky as many of the other more familiar creatures.

Special thanks should go to Dr Tegwyn Harris for his wonderful, animated discussions on the lives of the creatures beneath our feet and for sharing some of his immense knowledge on this subject. Thanks also go to all the Helford VMCA volunteers who turned up, dug in and got muddy and to Matt Slater (Cornwall Wildlife Trust), Rhiannon Pipkin (Natural England), Pamela Tompsett and Dave Thomson (Helford VMCA) for organisation, logistics and making sure everything ran smoothly!

A full list of species found on the day can be found here.

Holly Latham

Masked Crab (Corystes cassivelaunus). Image: Holly Latham
What’s beneath your feet? Image: Pam Tompsett

Similar Posts

  • Seacore Ltd – from Gweek Quay to Far-off Seas

    Byjeff

    Thursday 29th January 2009

    The boardroom at Fugro Seacore in Falmouth was packed as 40 members squeezed in to hear John Gleadowe’s re-scheduled talk. Seacore began in 1976 as the concept of two CSM mining engineers to develop underwater drilling equipment for tin exploration off the north Cornish coast. A prototype was tested in a creek in Zambia.

  • Dawn Chorus Beside Polwheveral Creek

    Byjeff

    22 April 2007
    An early start did not deter an eager band of some 28 people armed with binoculars converging on Goongillings Farm where a delicate grey mist swirled amongst the trees edging the creek. The expertise of Martin Rule, the group leader was much appreciated in recognising the songs of the unseen vocalists. Charles and Barbara Pugh rounded a very successful expedition with hot drinks and refreshments amid requests for an even earlier start next year!!

  • Non-native Marine Invasive Species (Guy Baker)

    Byjeff

    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.

  • Regenerating the Helford Oyster Fishery

    Byjeff

    24 March 2007
    After many years under the management of the Hodges family, in 2005 the Duchy of Cornwall Oyster Farm had been acquired by Ben Wright and Wright Bros Oyster Merchants. Ben gave a lively description of his current operations to rejuvenate the native oyster beds by lifting and cleaning all the stock, initially by hand – a daunting task but to be continued with a recently acquired oyster barge.

  • Seashore Safari

    Byjeff

    Saturday, 25th July 2009

    Clearly something interesting was about to happen as a group of nearly 30 people, adults and children, gathered on the beach at Helford Passage for a short introductory talk by Ruth Williams, Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Officer. Then, armed with an assortment of nets, buckets and trays, we set off, clambering over limpet- and barnacle-strewn rocks to the shallow pools left by the receding tide. The Seashore Safari had begun. Weather conditions were ideal – sunny and warm with a slight breeze. Intrigued holidaying families joined in; and by now the numbers had swelled to 40, of whom half were children.