Ranger Roundup - Week 5

Welcome to our new 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 fifth week.

Eyemouth Herring Queen Rockpool Ramble

On Wednesday, we ran a Rockpool Ramble on Eyemouth beach where we found lots of amazing creatures, including a huge shore crab and a grey sea slug! We were also lucky enough to be joined by the Herring Queen and her maids; it was wonderful to have them join us at this event again. We hope everyone had fun exploring the rockpools and will join us for another Rockpool Ramble soon!

Marine Education Centre on Tour - Paxton House

Well, we’ve had a fantastic week at Paxton House - truly the location I’ve been most excited for! We had the busiest week of the tour so far with an amazing 263 people coming along to learn about the marine environment, with a great mix of holidaymakers and locals. Throughout our final week on tour, we’ve amassed a whole army of multicoloured crabs and doubled our smack of jellyfish - a huge thank you to everyone who helped make them all!

St Abbs Lifeboat Gala

On Saturday, the BMR attended the St Abbs Lifeboat Gala, a day for local businesses and organisations to get together to celebrate and raise money for the local independent lifeboat station at St Abbs. We had our usual stall set up with our info boards, games, and crafts, and our gull mascot even made an appearance! It was another great opportunity to engage with people about our amazing marine environment, and we were delighted to support the lifeboat station.

Big Seaweed Search

Last week, from 26th July to 3rd August, was the Big Seaweed Search, a citizen science project set up by the Marine Conservation Society in partnership with the Natural History Museum to understand the changes in seaweeds across our shores in response to environmental pressures. Focusing on 3 key changes (sea temperature rise, ocean acidification, and non-native species spread). The presence of 14 species of seaweed was recorded by BMR staff members and 3 volunteers from St Abbs Marine Station. The data collected is then sent off to scientists at the Natural History Museum to be analysed, allowing them to monitor this key habitat.

National Whale and Dolphin Watch 

This weekend, Ranger Anj teamed up with Ciaran from the National Trust for Scotland for a day of cetacean watching at the idyllic St Abbs Head. We were for the National Whale and Dolphin Watch Week, hosted by the Sea Watch Foundation…and honestly, we couldn’t have asked for better weather conditions! You know what people say about the calm before the storm! While our cetacean count was a little on the modest side (just a possible glimpse of a Harbour porpoise playing hard to get), we swapped stories, chatted with curious passers-by, and even convinced a few folks to join us in scanning the waves in the hope of seeing a fin. We were even treated by Ciaran, who brought out a stash of chocolate digestives to celebrate our efforts, because what’s a day of sea-watching without snacks? We all know we are only there for the snacks, right? 

Marine Education Centre - The Hippodrome

Throughout August, we will once more be running our Marine Education Centre from the Hippodrome in Eyemouth. We will be open 11-4pm from Monday to Saturday across the whole of August. As this is our main base, this will be our largest MEC so far this summer, as we have all our education items, including an amazing minke whale skull which we couldn’t bring on tour, plus loads more! We hope to see you there!