Ranger Roundup - Week 2

Welcome to our next blog! Each week, our Summer Rangers Anj, Finn and Becca will be providing a roundup of all that's happening at the BMR. Read on to find out more about the new rangers and what they have been up to in their second week.

Marine Education Centre

Well, that’s our first week of the Marine Education Centre On Tour complete. St Abbs was amazing, thank you to everyone who came out to visit us and learn about our marine environment. We’ve had an incredible 110 visitors for our week at the Ebba Centre, with a mix of adults, kids, locals, and holidaymakers.

The kids have been brilliant at our arts and crafts and helping make us paper jellyfish - we’ve now amassed a smack of seven and are hoping to add more week on week! Our touch tank has been a huge success, with many rockpool critters including: crabs, hermit crabs, sea snails, beadlet anemones, limpets, scorpion fish and blennies - all collected from St Abbs Harbour. Everyone was getting stuck in and having a closer look at these wonderful creatures, and managed to get lots of kids holding hermit crabs.

WDC Shorewatches

Now, we couldn’t pass up the chance to make the most of St Abbs being a designated WDC Shorewatch site. If you’re not familiar, Shorewatch is this brilliant citizen science project where everyday ocean lovers (yes, you!) help collect data on marine mammals. So, we thought…why not get the community involved while we’re here?

And that’s exactly what we did! Every day, we rallied locals, chatted with curious visitors, and teamed up with the brilliant crew over at the St Abbs Marine Research Facility for daily shore watches. Sure, we didn’t spot any dolphins or whales during our official watch times (classic wildlife timing), but we did soak up some sunshine, meet some genuinely lovely people, and share stories about the incredible creatures that call this coastline home. No sightings are still useful data. 

But just when we thought our marine mammal luck had run dry—bam! On our final day, we were treated to an incredible display by a pod of Bottlenose Dolphins, along with some Harbour Porpoise making a surprise appearance. Total magic. We logged both sightings on the Shorewatching app as casual observations—because no way were we letting that moment slip by unrecorded. Continuing on with our mantra that any data is useful data!

St Abbs, you were wild, warm, and wonderful. We’ll be back—binoculars in hand and eyes on the waves.

Trainings

We wrapped up the week with some lifesaving skills — literally! Our team just completed Emergency First Aid and Safeguarding training, so we’re now fully equipped to keep you safe and sound at all our events. We look forward to seeing you soon!