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Marine Conservation Society: Lancashire area group |
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The competition is part of the celebration of the silver anniversary of the Lancaster Maritime Museum. Photographs on the COAST theme – from shipwrecks to sandy beaches – are invited. The best entries will be displayed in the Exhibition Gallery.
For further details, including PRIZES, please see the entry form below:
Coast photo competition entry form. (300kB PDF)
by Charlotte Caffrey MSc. FRGS
An exploration of the wildlife, marine life and scenery of Spitzbergen, Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.
This is a special event organised by the Preston Society (The Preston Bird watching & Natural History Society) to mark their 3000th. presentation/lecture!
At: 7.30pm on Saturday 28th 27th November, 2010
Location: St. Mary’s Church Hall, Cop Lane, Penwortham, Preston PR1 0SR
Tickets costing £3.50 each available through the Preston Society – full details in the form linked below:
The arctic and antactic – booking form (corrected)
The three categories this year were Above water, underwater and humerous, and the winners, declared by popular vote at the meeting on the 10th of February were:
Above: In the above water category, Greenland sea ice, by Chrissie Ryan.
Above: In the underwater category, Scorpionfish by Lewis Bambury.
Above: In the humerous category, Fish head by Chrissie Ryan.
Report on the MCS walk 30th January: The Ribble Way walk between Longton and Penwortham (Preston) is an interesting route. While the land is flat, we walked on the raised levees, which protect the surrounding land from the river Ribble, and so had excellent views over the river and inland. Wildlife included several large flocks of geese, cormorants (one pictured) and a couple of hares.
Thanks to Hilary for organising a very enjoyable day out!
The Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean is one of the least-spoilt areas of marine wildlife on earth, with extensive coral reef habitats. It could become one of the worlds foremost marine reserves, if we have the will to enact protection, as through an accident of history it is under British jurisdiction. Our chairman, Ron Crosby, has a long history of involvement with the Chagos islands, having taken part in the early marine life survey work. The Chagos islands have been subject of a couple of talks to the group in recent years, but if you missed these, there is plenty of information online through the link below:
This address also has an online petition to lobby for protection – the consultation period ends on 12th February 2010, so please take a look soon!
MCS AGM report. The National AGM came north to Preston this year, just a few days after the long-awaited completion of the Marine and Coastal Access Act. This finally opens up the possibility of statutory marine reserves around the UK, so there was considerable satisaction, though there is still a long way to go to implement effective protection for habitats and species ‘on the ground’.
Something that came from the meeting quite strongly was the feeling that we need to broaden our constituency. We need to be able to show that the state of the seas around us is of concern to more than just a few eco-warriors!
Recently in-store polling work by the Co-Op has shown that you do want to look after marine wildlife. Clearly the state of our seas effects everyone living in an island nation! This collaboration with the Co-Op is now coming together in the ‘Your Sear Your Voice’ campaign. This gives you the opportunity to support the establishment of marine reserves in your area. (See below for further details).
AGM was on 17th November 2009 at the Foster Building, UCLAN.
The ‘common’ skate has been in serious trouble for some time, due entirely to over fishing. In 2008 ICES recomended that there should be no more target fishing, and that by-catch needed to be limited. Unfortunately, it now looks as though what fisheries statistics were labelling as the ‘common’ skate is in fact two species, with distinct morphologies and life histories. This change in classification means that we have two endangered species. One of these species (Dipturus cf. intermedia) is now thought to be in immediate risk of extinction.
It is sad that we know so little about our seas, and yet do them so much damage.
Ref: Iglésias S.P., Toulhoat L., Sellos D.Y. Taxonomic confusion and market mislabelling of threatened skates: important consequences for their conservation status. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, (in press) via Science Daily
More information: UK biodiversity Action Plan on the Common Skate
Is there something you can do? – The ‘Your Seas Your Voice’ programme, sponsored by the Co-Op, allows you to lend support to proposed marine reserves around the UK coasts. Reserves with strong no-take policies are the only way that many species, like the common skate, will survive. Showing you care about the seas around us is the only way we will get the political action necessary to offer them this protection:
We had an interesting walk today around Walney, with some great weather and light. Thanks Gordon for organising.
I couldn’t help but notice how much plastic rubbish there was though, hardly a meter without any. I didn’t think I was that old, but I can remember as a child when on a trip to the beach you didn’t see tons of plastic. In fact, like most children, I was a real beachcomber, picking up shells, dead crabs, rocks, bits of wood etc. I would have noticed.
Anyway, for anyone interested, I’ve put some pictures on my web pages here.
Photographer Chris Jordan has published a heart-breaking series of photos of the effects of litter on baby Albatross. On the tiny Midway Atoll in the middle of the North Pacific, tens of thousands of Albatross chicks die yearly of toxicity and starvation because their parents feed them plastic, thinking it’s food.
See the photos here
We arrived at Glen Luce through torrential rain on the Friday night, at start of the August Bank Holiday. Saturday, thankfully, was a stark contrast, with just a couple of showers, otherwise warm and sunny. The strong winds and heavy rain of the previous day had, however, done its damage to underwater conditions around the coast. The most sheltered spot, at Lady Bay, looked promising, with no swell, blue skies and water – but rubbish underwater visibility. At least we could eat our sandwiches and dry off our kit in the sun afterwards! The morning was followed with excursions to Stranraer and Port Logan, there being little prospect of any diving that day…
The weather got wetter overnight, and Sunday was quite grey, with light drizzle in the morning. We first tried to get access to Drumbreddan Bay, but the track (and public footpath) were submerged under a deep spill of slurry, which looked to have been festering for some time. Consequently we made our way down to Ardwell Bay. Here there was a deep swell, which would have made diving quite difficult in shallow water close to the rocks. We decided to chance snorkelling, which was a very enjoyable experience, the movement of the weed in the swell makes you appreciate some of the mechanical stresses seaweed (and shore organisms in general) have to survive. While we were in very shallow water, we did spot some mearl (unexpected in less than 2m depth), wrasse, and plenty of weed!
After the snorkel the weather closed in, stopping any further hopes of diving that day, so we made our way down to the tea house on the Mull of Galloway. Here the weather was quite atmospheric, with, for once, visibility above the water challenging what we had experienced below it!
Still, despite the weather (which again was very soggy for our drive home on Monday), we all enjoyed the weekend – good company, good food, and good accommodation (thanks to White Cairn Caravan Site at Glen Luce). Thanks to Jo for organising the trip!
Above right: Photo montage from top to bottom: Lady Bay on Saturday – sheltered but poor (underwater) visibility. Corsewall Point was too exposed to dive, with large waves and a deep swell. On Sunday the vis had cleared to >1m, so we were able to snorkel at Ardwell Bay (photo of Fucus sp.), though the swell was still strong. By early afternoon the cloud had closed in, and visibility (above water) was pretty poor (photo of the Mull of Galloway lighthouse)…
Barry