Ranger Round-Up 2026: Week 3

Welcome to the new weekly ranger round-up, where our Summer Marine Rangers Emma and Charley as well as our Gull Ranger, Patrick, will come together to share everything they have been up to! Enjoy reading through these weekly summaries and please pop into Blue Adventures if you want to say hi to the team.

Coastal Clean Ups

We kicked off the week with a coastal clean up at Killiedraught Bay, with six of us collecting rubbish and supervised by Sally’s adorable dog - Ollie! Together, we collected roughly 6kg of rubbish from this shoreline. It’s always incredible seeing how quickly a beach transforms once litter is removed when we’re walking back up the hill off Killiedraught Bay. Have you ever noticed how different you feel after a clean-up? A slight sense of achievement seeing the Bay nice and clean afterwards. 

During the clean, we discovered a flare that had washed up on the beach. After assessing the situation, we contacted the Coastguard, who safely collected it. It was a reminder of how important these clean-ups are - you never know what you might find!

Intertidal Marine Monitoring (IMM) Surveys

This week was very busy with the IMM surveys. These surveys help us track the health of our rocky shore habitats by recording species presence, abundance and environmental conditions across fixed sites. They’re one of the most important datasets for temporal (long-term) and species distribution for the reserve, and they’re always full of surprises. We have been collecting this data since 2021, working with NatureScot. 

We completed three IMMs this week, starting off at St. Abbs, moving south to Coldingham Bay and finished the week off with the final IMM at Killiedraught Bay. We deciphered the distance at which the rocky shore shifts from upper to middle, to lower shore, using the dominant species to help. For example, the upper shore is dominated by limpets, periwinkles, barnacles and a variety of lichens, as this zone is only submerged at extreme high tides. After this, we used quadrats to identify species presence and abundance.

If you’ve ever wondered what we look for during an IMM, think kelp, algae, barnacles, limpets, periwinkles, anemones, crabs, and all the tiny details that reveal how healthy the intertidal zone is. It was fascinating discussing the change we can see in the marine species across the three different locations. It’s also a great chance to have a giggle at our Marine Rangers slipping on the Oarweed and green algae on the rocky shore!

We were extremely lucky and had an amazing turnout at all of our IMMs, including an appearance from Finn, one of last year’s summer marine rangers, who joined us for the first IMM at St. Abbs. It was such a good chance to be able to meet loads of the volunteers, and even some students who are using this data for their undergraduate dissertation and PhD. 

Between surveys, we organised equipment (including quadrats, GPS devices and tape measures for the transects), coordinated jobs, and kept everything ready and organised for the next day’s work! Now it is time for us to input all the data we have collected. 

Marine Education Centre & Community Work

Emma and Patrick spent time in the shop this week, chatting to visitors, organising some upcoming events, and keeping everything running smoothly. Throughout the week, we continued preparing for the Intertidal Marine Monitoring Sessions, bringing over more supplies from the Hippodrome, organising equipment and keeping on top of the social media platforms. If you spotted our Ranger Roundup reel online, let us know what you think of it - we love hearing feedback and who sees our updates first.

Event Planning

With August quickly approaching, we’ve been busy organising our new events, preparing promotional posters and creating all the summer events for you to see on our Eventbrite page! It’s been great seeing so many people book onto our free summer events, and even seeing some returning faces at our events. Thank you to everyone who has come along to help us out, we really appreciate it.

First Aid Training

We wrapped up the week with a full Emergency First Aid course in Tweedbank, meaning our whole ranger team is now fully trained to lead events independently (numbers permitting) for the rest of the summer! It was a long but fun day, and we feel ready to be able to put these skills into practice - fingers crossed we’re fortunate enough not to have to use them this season. 

Gull surveys

Patrick has been incredibly busy this week, creating lots of educational articles, and also completed gull surveys across Eyemouth, Coldingham and St. Abbs village. We have been seeing our first juvenile gulls on the wing - they are starting to fledge their nests! This is 6 weeks on from our first chicks - which is what we would expect to see. Patrick is also currently organising a series of educational gull talks which will be hosted here in the MEC. Keep your eyes peeled for these talks in August! 

Get Involved

If you have any questions for us, or would like to share your favourite memories of the Berwickshire Marine Reserve, feel free to pop into the shop for a chat with one of the team. If you’re interested in volunteering with us this season (can’t see why you wouldn’t!) come on down to Blue Adventures on Eyemouth High Street or e-mail us at info@berwickshiremarinereserve.org.uk - we’d love to meet you and tell you more about what’s happening across the reserve.