For further details, including PRIZES, please see the entry form below:

Coast photo competition entry form. (300kB PDF)

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)

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!

Protect Chagos .org

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!

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.

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:

Your Seas Your Voice

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.

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