Shore sampling can be risky. Tides, slippery rocks, remote places. We always fill in risk assessment forms before we do fieldwork and I duly filled mine in before heading out here. I must now put my hand up though and admit it was incomplete, I had left off some risks. In my defence though, elephant seals sidling up behind you and birds of prey flying off with your samples are not risks that most people would have thought of.

I flew out to Sealion Island this morning. A small island that is the southernmost island of the Falkland Islands group and notable for its breeding colony of Elephant Seals. It is part free time and part still sampling where possible. After the short flight in the little 8-seater plane (photo 1), I headed straight down to the beach to watch the enormous bull Elephant Seal (photo 2) lolloping along like a huge rippling slug with all the pups around laid out ready for a bit of sunbathing. From there I wandered down along the rocky shoreline keeping an eye out for potential dive sites (definitely not for orcas or more seals). Coming across a flat expanse of rock still just under water I was interested to see it was very slate-like with lots of potential layers to lever up to look for worms. This was great as I hadn’t seen any rock like this up to now as most of the islands are fairly solid granite. I had forgotten my dive knife which would have made a good chisel but my penknife didn’t do a bad job and I was soon picking out worms from the crevices. As I worked I heard a strange splashing sound, looked up but didn’t notice anything. As it happened again a short time later I again looked up to see one of the Elephant Seal pups I had earlier walked around to get on to the ledges had moved along towards me. I looked at it, it looked back and didn’t move. I carried on, more splashing, I looked up. The seal was closer and another had also appeared. I carried on. Splash, splash, splash. Looked up, they were a bit closer. This carried on for a bit until their courage ran out and they kept their distance to the relief of all. I moved on.

Down to another shore and a bit more scraping and collecting. This time I look up and what I think was a Striated Caracara landed only a couple of metres away and looked at me. I had already seen one of these twice, also close up and was beginning to feel followed. It hopped closer, surely not normal behaviour for such birds. The Striated Caracara, according to the island’s leaflet is one of the rarest birds of prey in the world. This rare bird then hopped over to the sampling pot near my bag, curled its talons round it and flew off (photo 3) as I watched in disbelief. It landed higher up the shore where a friendly goose then attacked it until it abandoned the pot and flew off again. Very surreal. I retrieved my worms and left.

The rest of the day involved more penguins, including rockhoppers (photo 4) which I hadn’t seen before, lots more birds and more seals.

Tomorrow will probably be much the same, hopefully without the wildlife trying to steal my precious samples!

This was to be ‘liveaboard’ diving. We loaded all our kit on to the Hans Hansson, an ex-North Sea Scandinavian rescue vessel that has only been down in the Falklands for a few months in her new role as a tourist/research vessel. Setting off on Thursday morning we didn’t have very far to go but took it easy with a slow steam towards the north of Stanley. The slow roll eventually made my stomach wonder whether or not to stay friends with me but happily we managed to hold it together.

I had been concerned about just how cold the water was going to be with the suggestion that it would be around 5°C, which would have been painful. In general though, temperatures varied between 7 (cold, my hands hurt) and 9°C (chilly, some feeling remaining at end of dive). My new 7mm hood did its job to keep my head warm while the rest of me tended to get quite cold towards the end of each dive. Of course I was moving around very little and less than on a normal dive as I was mostly in one area collecting each time.

The seabed around Cochon Island was very rocky with steep walls and gullies in the shallower water (6-8m), large rocks and cobbles over coarse sand at around 10-15m and larger boulders/bedrock with bigger patches of open sand from around 15m and deeper. This also varied according to where we were around the island.

Diving through the giant kelp was an interesting experience. This kelp is nothing like anything you see in the UK. It grows up from its holdfast which attaches to the seabed at any depth down to 20m or so and then the fronds spread out on the surface for many more metres creating a thick mat of surface kelp (photo 1). This stuff is so tough that the RIB would actually anchor to it while the divers went in and then the divers themselves could use it as a shot line to the seabed and back again. When going in from the RIB it could be hard to get your feet under you through the fronds and then the general rule was sink straight down and don’t flounder! Otherwise it wraps itself round you and you end up dangling mid-water (probably upside down) hoping that your buddy might notice, take pity and cut you free.

Diving is done to very safe protocols here as the nearest recompression chamber is in Chile. Therefore, all dives are done shallower than 20m and there is no decompression diving, reducing the risk of nitrogen issues. The dive surveys are carried out by volunteers, who make up the Shallow Marine Surveys Group, just like the SeaSearch volunteers in the UK. These guys all give up their time willingly, often, as in this case, taking time off work to be involved or, where self-employed, giving up a day or two’s pay. It makes you feel very humble knowing that you are being paid to be there with them.

The marine life was colourful and diverse. Lots of different nudibranchs, starfish (photo 2), sea cucumbers, urchins, snails and crabs with many of the surfaces covered in a pink encrusting alga so thin in places that you could put a finger through it. Worms were not immediately evident unless you went looking for them. Turning over rocks was the simplest method and yielded many different species although some were particularly common. Those most often seen were large scaleworms (photo 3) more than 6cm in length, long paddleworms up to 20 cm long (photo 4) and on many surfaces were the long tubes of parchment worms (Chaetopterus sp.). Other methods of collecting involved scraping rock surfaces covered in a turf of hydroids and/or bryozoans, taking samples of the loose pink algal crusts and pieces of giant kelp holdfast. I say pieces because these holdfasts are enormous being nearly a metre wide and half as much high. I’d never be able to get one of those in a bucket!

I was also joined in my collecting by Christoph (photo 5), a German researcher just back from a cruise to South Georgia who was looking at crustacea, particularly isopods. Between us, life on the seabed was not safe.

The threatened weather didn’t materialise as forecast. The worst predicted day, Saturday, turned into the best with the least swell on the exposed side of the island leading to an amazingly still evening watching penguins and shearwaters return to the island for the night. This to the delight of the surveyors who managed to blitz the entire island with survey sites over the four days.

The visibility was the only disappointing point of the weekend. Again like the UK, a spring bloom is in progress here with plankton thick in the water. Visibility is still good in my eyes being a minimum of 6 m but knowing it can be crystal clear and at least 50 m is merely a tantalising thought. Macro shots are still possibly but wider shots of the scenery are impossible in the thick plankton, particularly as the kelp can increase the gloom at times.

The weather forecast for Saturday appeared with gusto on Sunday morning and although a first couple of pairs got in for a dive it was quickly decided to pack up and move slightly down the coast to Kidney Island where there was a chance of more shelter. This then ended our weekend with a shallow dive in a bay with the prospect of seeing sealions (photo 6). These did indeed come to play in the water and I quickly realised that the seals in the UK are little puppies compared to the full grown St Bernards I was seeing. Having 3 or 4 of these in your face under water having the occasional nibble at extremities gets a little nerve-wracking but still an unmissable experience. Also found a 'worm garden' with the worms poking upright out of their tubes in the sand into the surrounding water. Dug some of that up to bring back but I promise there was loads more left!

I should stop wishing for better weather, every time I do it gets worse. This morning I woke to the sound of rain being beaten against the window by the ever present wind (it may have been a stronger wind but I can’t tell any more). I hoped it might pass quickly but it soon became apparent that it was set in for a while. The desire to go sampling waned. Maybe today would be a good day to catch up on some admin, putting my notes in order etc etc?

I went down to the Fisheries department and for the first time met Paul Brickle. Paul is the guy that I organised this whole trip through. Unfortunately he’s been on a research cruise since before I arrived only returning yesterday so this is the first time we have actually met except over a skype call. During our discussions Paul mentioned a good sampling site with some different species I potentially didn’t have. The site was only round the corner and with low tide still an hour away it seemed a waste to miss it so off I went into the rain… The site was near one of the many rotting beached hulks that exist along the Stanley shoreline, the Lady Elizabeth (photo 1). As I dug away on the beach a coach-load of tourists stopped and lined up on the road to take pictures, no doubt rather annoyed at the sight of a person in blue and yellow waterproofs digging holes on the beach directly inbetween them and the photogenic rusty wreck. Shame. I carried on. At least despite being wet, it didn’t feel as cold and my hands retained feeling this time.

Back in the lab I slowly began to steam and dry out. My catch turned out to include two different species of lugworm (photo 2). The photo shows the two different species. For anyone who has seen them before, these probably look just like the lugworms you find on beaches in the UK but I can assure you they're not. There are several differences to differentiate these two species on but the different colours are not one of them!

The rest of the afternoon involved getting equipment ready for my first dive trip – very exciting! Of course, in true UK style, the weather is deteriorating in preparation, Saturday looks decidedly dodgy with 30-35mph winds from the wrong direction! Still, we should get some dives in before that and I’m really looking forward to it. Apparently the poor (!) 8m recent visibility has cleared up (have these guys dived in the UK?!). We should have 4 days diving around Cochon and Kidney Islands, both nature reserves, located a short distance directly north of Stanley.

No more blog then until I get back on Sunday. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you about some fabulous diving!

After a rather warm few weeks the weather is finally starting to turn cold.

Many schools are reporting colder temperatures and some have even seen frost.

The bulbs I planted last year have started to grow already! They are 4cms tall. I wonder if they will survive if the temperatures get much colder. Please let me know if any of your bulbs have started to grow.

See this blog page from Sherwood Primary School - they have a write-up on their planting day. http://sherwood.primaryblogger.co.uk

See also pictures of planting at Ysgol Clocaenog, outside Ruthin.

Many Thanks

Professor Plant

The rain passed but the sun sadly didn’t return. In fact, it’s been really cold the last couple of days. Last week I only needed 2 layers to keep me warm while sampling, one of those having short sleeves. Today I had a long sleeved top, jumper, fleece and waterproof jacket and I was ok. Unfortunately that couldn’t keep my hands warm and thick gloves are no use when you’re trying to tease small worms out of mud.

My first site was a shallow inlet with a stream running into it at the top. The tide had retreated and left a windy and gradually widening watercourse to follow. After 15minutes tramping along with the going getting gradually softer I began to realise that I still couldn’t see where the sea had disappeared to (photo 1). This did not bode well and I decided not to try and find the end as it was becoming more likely I might get stuck in the mud and also that when the tide did decide to come back in it would be very fast up such a shallow area. Instead I sampled 3 different spots and then made my way back to the car and set off for the next site.

As the two sites were facing completely different directions in terms of where the sea approached them from, this meant that the times of low tide for each were actually nearly 3 hours apart allowing to sample the same tide in both places.

The second place gave me an interesting offshore back to sample that was accessible at low tide. Again, this was quite different to places I had been before and was completely packed with little tubes (photo 2) indicating a LOT of worms should be there in the tubes.

Once again my hands were completely frozen and numb by the time I finished and I was glad to stop. The feeling in my toes had also started to disappear and I tried to think warm thoughts of the week before. What happened to the sun?

Still my excursion out had been a nice change. The roads are a little disconcerting to drive on as once you leave Stanley they are all unconsolidated gravel. The maximum speed limit is 40mph for good reason and every so often the landrover wavers a little as you drive before grip reestablishes itself and I try to relax my grip on the wheel too! I also got to see the ‘granite runs’, a strange area of naturally occurring broken granite blocks (photo 3) of which the Falkland Islands has one of the largest areas in the world.

Today’s wormy photo (photo 4) is of a paraonid (still no common name I’m afraid), one of my new worms today.

Fingers crossed it might start to warm up again soon!