#410: Don't make an enemy of an anemone

I liked this piece in the Guardian today on the anemone from Helen Sullivan.

A lovely quote from George Henry Lewes is included:

We must always remember the great drama which is incessantly acted out in every drop of water, on every inch of earth. Then and only then do we realise the mighty complexity, the infinite splendour of nature. Then and only then do we feel how full of life, varied, intricate, marvellous, world within world, yet nowhere without space to move is this single planet, on the crust of which we stand and look out into shoreless space peopled by myriads of other planets, larger, if not more wonderful than ours.

#221: Making Space for Sand

Making Space for Sand is a project I was made aware of recently. Sand Dunes are an important habitat, but they face a number of threats.

The ‘Building Community Resilience on a Dynamic Coastline by Making Space for Sand’ project (also known as Making Space for Sand or MS4S) is one of 25 national projects funded by DEFRA as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme (FCRIP). 

The programme will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.

The project website has an excellent section outlining the formation of Sand Dunes, particularly within the located context of Cornwall.

Sand Dunes are an important part of the coastal defences in the locations where they are found. I am particularly familiar with the dunes on the North Norfolk Coast at places like Holkham. 

I've previously carried out fieldwork on those dunes with both GCSE and 'A' level students, and also 

Atkins has provided GIS support and created some visualisations of future landscapes.

#195: The Wash

One area which would make a good focus for an investigation of natural history and landscape management would be the large estuary called The Wash. 

It is one of Norfolk's Natural Nature Reserves.

The reserve is a mix of open deep water, permanent shallow water, mudflats and saltmarsh, representing one of Britain’s most important winter feeding areas for waders and wildfowl.

The Wash NNR comprises Kirton Marsh, Terrington St Clement Marsh, Point Green and the North Wootton Marsh. It’s a valuable breeding zone for birds like the redshank and supports one of the largest common seal populations in England.

Main habitat: saltmarsh and mudflats
Area: 8,880 hectares

Source: Gov.UK

I lived on the shores of the Wash for twelve years, and could cycle to a beach where I could watch the sun set over the water, or the passing storms as above. I also had friends who lived up on the hill in Hunstanton before the present sprawl of housing estates cloaked the whole area and cut off the view. I remember evenings sat in their garden looking down towards the coast and Searles' beach huts and across to the twinkling lights of Skegness and other settlements on the other side of The Wash: a view now lost forever.

Somewhere in The Wash lies a great treasure waiting to be found.

According to this blog:

In October 1216 King John was travelling from Spalding, Lincolnshire, to Bishop’s Lynn, Norfolk, but was taken ill and decided to return. While he took the longer route around the Wash by way of Wisbech, he sent his baggage train, comprising horse-drawn wagons, along the causeway and ford across the mouth of the Wellstream, a route usable only at low tide, to arrive ahead of him.

The tide came in very high and the baggage train was too slow to beat the tide and was washed away. The baggage included the crown jewels. Their loss was a major disaster, which John didn’t have to deal with, as he died, probably of food poisoning, a few days later. He was recorded as staying the following night, 12–13 October 1216, at Swineshead Abbey, moving on to Newark-on-Trent, and dying of his illness on 19 October.

However, there are plans to change the area irrevocably, and impact on its natural history and wildlife. These include the Snettisham Spectacular - which happens when the tides are right.

Nothing but nothing is safe from those whose lives are defined by making money through destruction. The Wash is precious beyond words. We don’t need a marina, cruise ships and a barrage on one of the best wader habitats in Europe. It’s priceless. https://t.co/o96ADEv7xQ

— Mary Colwell (@curlewcalls) May 21, 2023

There have been several attempts to put a barrage over the Wash in the past to generate tidal energy. This always causes controversy and the plans were recently revived. This may be an issue worth following depending on how serious the plans get over the next five years or so. A public meeting was held in Hunstanton this week.

There is a thread here describing some of the contributions by those who spoke:

Thanks to everyone who came down to support Mike and defend the Wash! 💚 https://t.co/4VGfKtMfIo

— Norfolk Wildlife Trust (@NorfolkWT) November 6, 2023

It's over 70 years since they were discussed for the first (or more) time. This link is to a Hansard discussion in 1967.

There are several useful links:

Britannica Encylopaedia entry.

A website for those who want to Sail the Wash.

One of the places on the edge of the Wash is Wild Ken Hill. This was the location of BBC filming for some years and remains a location which will perhaps be part of the resources I put together on Norfolk as an extended case study, with reference to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the Wash, Cley next the Sea and other key locations for investigating Natural History.

Images: Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license - the Wash from Snettisham beach

#162: World Jellyfish Day 2023

The 3rd of November is World Jellyfish Day. 

Happy #WorldJellyfishDay! 🎉

Which jellyfish have you seen floating through our waters? 💙 https://t.co/JqaZmA5PA9 pic.twitter.com/SjBbkJLF8U

— The Wildlife Trusts (@WildlifeTrusts) November 3, 2023

It's a special day to celebrate the mysterious creatures and think of ways to keep them safe all over the world.

These strange animals are made up of mostly water, have no centralised brains, blood or bones.

Conservationists are hoping to raise awareness of this unique creature for the role they play in the environment and their potential to help medical research or even be a sustainable food source.

And while you may think of the unusual sea creatures as mainly being far away from home, sightings of jellyfish in UK seas and on our beaches have gone up by 32% according to research done by the Marine Conservation Society.

Jellyfish were around before dinosaurs?

They've been around for more than 500 million years - scientists discovered this in 2005 when they found a 505-million-year-old jellyfish fossil.

Source

Their mostly transparent bodies, wiry tentacles, and lack of bodily organs confounded early scientists so much that they couldn’t even classify these guys — back when categories were only plants, animals, and humans. Jellyfish weren’t plants but they didn’t fit the specified mold of animals either. The world simply dubbed (classified) them as ‘incomplete’ and didn’t bother investigating further, at least until the microscope was invented. Many such ‘incomplete’ organisms didn’t neatly fit into any category naturalists created, and they were forced to reexamine their categories and come up with new definitions for each.

However, it wasn’t until Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution in 1859 — “all living things show a variation in physical traits over time as a process of natural selection” — that the jellyfish got some recognition.

A Marine Conservation Society guide on how to identify jellyfish.

Report your jellyfish sightings here.

#145: The Big Seaweed Search

The Natural History Museum has a citizen science project called the Big Seaweed Search running.

Home to a particularly high diversity, the UK is a special place for seaweeds, with over 650 species.

Understanding more about them is critical to protecting marine environments. Seaweed creates habitat where fish, invertebrates, birds, and marine mammals find food and shelter.

We know comparatively little about the abundance and distribution of seaweed species. So it is important to record them and monitor how they change over time.

Your observations will give us a better picture of how seaweeds are affected by:rising sea temperature
the arrival and spread of non-native species of seaweed
ocean acidification (the sea becoming more acidic as a result of absorbing carbon dioxide from the air)

#77: Saltmarsh App

Saltmarshes are an interesting ecosystem and the UK has quite a few of them.

There is a Saltmarsh app available to download.

It is a citizen science app inviting people to submit surveys.

It has a useful section which shows saltmarsh plants to help identify them. This will be helpful for anyone going on, or preparing for a field visit to a saltmarsh.

When I taught 'A' level geography in a previous school in West Norfolk, we used to have an annual trip to the coast for fieldwork. I think those schools who would beable to get to a saltmarsh should consider visiting one. 

There is a good opportunity to test a whole range of fieldwork skills in these environments, and they carry a range of risks to assess as well.

The website, from which the app can be downloaded has a useful guide to saltmarshes.

You can identify the locations of your nearest Saltmarsh using the MAGiC app (see the separate posts on this interactive map to see how it works). I've added the layer below and zoomed into the area of the Wash.