Walking along The North Entrance beach today brought the sight of a dozen or so dolphins cruising through the waves heading North. Attempting to get a photo of them was simply an exercise in demonstrating that dolphins can more rapidly take breaths than phone cameras can take photos. We do have a lovely selection though of shots of what the water looked like a second or so after the pod submerged again.Its always a joy to catch the sight of our snouty aquatic friends, they’re so elusive it feels a privilege to be in the same place at the same time and to happen to be facing the right direction as they pass.
The beach is much eroded at present from recent storms, with the sand cut back right to the dune field. At the narrowest parts of the beach the water had at the last high tide washed up to the foot of a 5 metre tall cliff of sand that is held together by the roots of the dune grasses growing scraggily along the top. The sand cliff is a layering of different sand sedimentation, dark layers half way up indicating periods of organic material deposition.
The recent storms have also left a puffer fish stranded at the high wash mark, their bodies swelling to skin tightening proportions in the heat of the day. Woe betide the first seagull to take a peck at their gas filled corpses. Peck-peck-pop! Ain’t no seaside picnicker gunna welcome that little birdie afterwards.
Along the way some washed up blue mollusc shells caught our eye, their attachment points fringed with bright red filaments. A closer inspection revealed that these molluscs had anchored themselves to a lump of half decayed polystyrene. The ubiquitous plastic takes so long to break down that to all intents and purposes it is in the environment for ever. Floating in the open ocean it seems to be an ideal attachment point for a passing young bivalve mollusc. It’s craggy, it floats, and it doesn’t break down. Perhaps even after this particular set of molluscs have long since died and fallen off this piece of polystyrene, the plastic itself will remain still only to blown or washed back out to sea to become a home again to another set of bivalves. The really bad thing about these shell creatures making a home upon this toxic substance is that it may make it a more attractive meal to some other creature. If you think trying to eat a puffer fish and ending up with a face full of exploded fish guts is a horrendous idea, try going for a snack of molluscs and ending up with gut full of poly(1-phenylethane-1,2-diyl).
