Back on the beach

The safari was out on the beach leading an enthusiastic troup of youngsters. Armed with their nets they hit the rockpools with gusto. Hauling out all manner of goodies. After the raid on the pools they scoured the beach for trophies that the weekends wild weather had washed up. They came up with all of the following.

A live Striped Venus shell.

A rather large and prickly Sea Mouse, maybe they should be called Sea Hedgehogs.

A wonderful arrangement of encrusting worms on this old Scallop shell.

A much smaller Variegated Scallop - I think. Beautiful patterning.

Must get a waterproof camera as this Beadlet Anenome was fully out in one of the top pools at the top of the tide but the camera struggles to get through the surface shine to the animal below.

These are two different species of starfish. I didn't realise this at first but on looking at the photo saw that they were obviously different shapes. So I had to get the ID of the right hand one confirmed as different from the other.

The left hand one is the Common Sand Star, the one we see regularly, the other is the Stiff Star, which apparently normally appears on our beach around September so are a little late this season.

This whopper is an Iceland Cyprina a very long lived animal.

Finally a picture of my welly as a scale for the collection.

A great haul and great fun!

Where to next? Difficult one now that its dark outside of working hours...so not at all sure if we get out safari-ing before the weekend when we still have our 'project' to complete.

In the meantime let us know how many molluscs are hiding away in your outback.