Ranger Roundup - Week 7

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 seventh week.

Intertidal Marine Monitoring - Coldingham Bay

The first of this week’s Intertidal Marine Monitoring was at Coldingham Bay. We headed over to the left side of the bay where the rocky shore starts. We set up 3 transects and first identified the position of each of the intertidal zones. Then we set off with our quadrats and sampled each zone 4 times. We found broad-clawed porcelain crabs, brittlestars, and mussels, as well as lots of seaweed species. As always, we were grateful to have a team of regular volunteers join us!

Edible boat race

A huge shout-out to Splash for inviting Anj to be a judge at the long-awaited return of Edible Boat Race! What an exciting morning filled with sunshine and a flotilla of tasty creations sailing (and sometimes sinking - we did have a boat entering the competition named after the Titanic) across the water along Eyemouth Beach. It was hard not to get hungry looking at some of these culinary masterpieces.

As one of the judges, Anj had a front-row seat to some seriously creative culinary craftsmanship. We had three tasty categories with some edible prizes for each. Firstly, we had the 'Most Splendid Looking Boat' and hands down, the glorious courgette longboat stole the show. The prize for 'Most Seaworthy' went to the humble coconut boat, and of course, a prize for the 'Fastest Boat', which took us by surprise, was a boat made from a tortilla.

These little moments, surrounded by smiles, eager minds and the sea, remind us just how lucky we am to be connecting with the community as a Summer Ranger for the BMR.

Intertidal Marine Monitoring - Killiedraughts Bay

We had two sessions of Intertidal Marine Monitoring this week because the tides have been very low, so we can access the full intertidal zone. For our second session, we headed down to Killiedraughts Bay and started with the rocky shore zonation, where we identified where each of the different intertidal zones (upper, middle and lower) started and ended. Once the zonation was complete, we moved on to the quadrat sampling to work out which species are most prevalent in each zone. We found all sorts of interesting creatures in this section, including a sea lemon, bryozoans, a porcelain crab and a type of sponge we haven’t yet identified!

Rockpool Ramble 

On Thursday, we held another rockpool ramble. This time, we were joined by the very enthusiastic Stow Disruptors, as well as several others. It seemed everyone had great fun, and we certainly did! It was wonderful to see everyone getting stuck in and eager to learn more about the rockpool creatures. The Stow Disruptors then joined us at the MEC to learn more about the local marine environment, and right away they got stuck in again, this time making amazing jellyfish creations!

What have we been enjoying most so far?

Becca: 

It’s got to be seeing how interactive the kids are with all the activities we have in the MEC and seeing how much they’re learning! A child around six came back again this week and remembered loads of facts about our collection of whale bones, including that baleen is made from keratin - so amazing to see what they take on board! Although I’m also loving all the science and conservation we take part in, such as the Intertidal Marine Monitoring and BioBlitz events - it’s great to be actively involved in research!

Finn:

The best part so far has been engaging with everyone who comes to our events and the MEC. It feels so rewarding to be able to teach people, especially the kids, about the wonderful marine life on our doorstep. It is particularly fantastic when you get to talk to really enthusiastic people who get really involved and want to see everything at the MEC and play all the games! Aside from the community engagement part of the job, I have also enjoyed the scientific side. It has been great to get involved with the Intertidal Marine Monitoring and contribute to citizen science projects such as the BioBlitz and The Big Seaweed Search!

Anj:  

One of the absolute best parts of this role? Watching young faces light up when they discover something new about a sea creature. There’s nothing quite like it. It's happened a few times where I have shown a child a new and fascinating little marine creature, and the instant they learned its secret, they sprinted to their parents to share what they had just learned. Moments like that make me think,  I could happily do this forever.