Ranger Round-Up 2026: Week 8

Berwickshire Marine Reserve

23 Aug 2026

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

Beach clean: Coldingham

Emma led a clean-up along Coldingham Bay on Tuesday, where she was joined by a family of three and a regular volunteer! They found plenty of neon blue fishing lines, crisp packets, broken or chewed-up tennis balls and LOTS of unidentifiable scraps of plastic. They were careful to place any plastic beach toys in the reusable play toy box on the beach - where kids can go to use items that others may have left behind! All litter picked up consisted of tiny fragments, wrapped up in the grass or seaweed washed ashore - this amounted to 1.18kg!

*As always, we are collecting citizen science beach litter data for MCS - which requires noting down every individual piece of litter we find.*

BMR Birthday!

It is tradition that every year, to celebrate the BMR’s anniversary, we jump into St Abbs Harbour. This year, we are celebrating 42 years! We were lucky the sun was shining and the high tide was at a reasonable hour for us to jump in together.

*A group of us jumped into the harbour - an incredibly refreshing and invigorating experience!*

Nurdle Hunt: Coldingham

On Wednesday morning, Emma took on a nurdle hunt at Coldingham Bay with a volunteer. Nurdles are lentil-sized plastic pellets which get washed up on beaches, as spillages off of boats are sadly quite regular. Although the beach wasn’t entirely covered in nurdles, every now and then you can find a hotspot of them when sifting through the sand. We added these to little jars and counted around 300 nurdles from our hour of hunting along Coldingham Sands.

*When we collect nurdles we pop them into a jar to count later in the afternoon - data is then uploaded to The Great Nurdle Hunt website, organised by Fidra.*

Caroline, also known as ScapaJoe, is an artist who uses litter collected from beaches to make art associated with climate change and wider marine issues. We sell many of her sculptures in the Marine Education Centre - please do pop in to have a look at her wonderful creations, from hermit crabs made from cans to turtles with cigarette ends as a shell.

*Artist Caroline digging outside the Beach Cafe to plant the metal structure of Helen the Mermaid into the ground.*

Scapa Joe is currently working on a new project, located in Coldingham Bay, right outside of the Beach Cafe… Helen the mermaid! She is made from discarded fishing nets, ropes and beach litter, made possible thanks to materials from Eyemouth Harbour Trust and funding from BCCF Environmental Legacy Fund and Bavs. We hope Helen will spark conversations about beach litter and ghost gear, encouraging people to take care of their natural environment.

*The rope and netting provided for the base of the mermaid were provided by Eyemouth Harbour Trust.*

Coastal Bird and Cetacean Watch

Patrick hosted a coastal bird and cetacean watch for 2 hours. The weather naturally did not play ball for a cetacean watch, with strong northerly winds sweeping in and churning up the sea, so cetaceans were near impossible to spot. However, it did bring some seabirds into the north sea, with a Sooty Shearwater early on the highlight - the first of the autumn in the area. We were also able to watch the Herring Gulls nesting on the stacks offshore, with the juveniles camouflaging so well with the rocks, and remind ourselves what so many of the population do, contrasting with the minority that come into conflict with people. We also enjoyed some Turnstones, freshly arrived back from their high Arctic breeding grounds, Oystercatchers and Curlews, and good numbers of Gannets feeding offshore, likely from Bass Rock further up the coast.

Gull Talks/ Project update

The Gull Project is nearing completion for the summer; all surveys are done and Patrick has been finalising the report of the summer’s activities. We have done 2 sets of 3 talks, one about gull identification, one about urban gull research, and one about the survey results and ideas on recommendations for a balanced co-existence moving forward. All offered a nice opportunity to discuss ideas with folk, and to share each other’s knowledge and experience. It has been lovely to have a space to discuss gulls beyond unwanted incidents, and to look at the full picture which is so often ignored in the press and local conversation.