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Windy day at the beach
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Tag Archives: flotsam
Flotsam Shoes at Chapmans Pool
It’s that time again – for the Great Dorset Beach Clean. Sunday 16th September 2012 will see dozens of volunteers descending on some of our most beautiful Jurassic Coast beaches to clear away the huge volumes of flotsam that has accumulated over the summer months – most of it plastic but also fishing nets and ropes and SHOES!
Here are some photographs of trainers, flip flops, and sandals that I found on the beach at Chapmans Pool last weekend. It always makes me wonder how the owners walked home after losing their shoes – no mean feat (or should I say ‘feet’) to climb up the hill again barefoot after the trip to the beach!
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Seven pink somethings from the seashore
Seven pink somethings from the seashore – pink seashells, pink sandal, pink seaweed, pink ‘salute’, pink stone, pink sea thrift, and pink sand.
Revision of a post previously published 23 May 2010
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Up-date on the multi-coloured rock pool at Rhossili
Previously I have talked about a small rock pool at Rhossili that had filled up with multi-coloured pieces of plastic probably arriving at this one small area of the beach from hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. Bright coloured fragments and pellets of plastic were also observable in the regurgitated remains spewed up by seabirds on the beach. That was back in the summer 2009. I have been keeping an eye on the pool to see what its fate might be.
By October 2009, high tides seemed to have mostly cleaned out the pool and it looked on the road to recovery.
By January 2010 the pool was contaminated again. However, a large proportion of the rubbish in the pool this time was organic. Vegetable remains included straw-like terrestrial plant stems, broken fronds of brown seaweeds, and the large air bladders of Egg Wrack.
For earlier postings related to the plastic pollution in this pool, click here Multi-coloured Rock Pool at Rhossili and More about the multi-coloured rock pool at Rhossili.
Revision of a post first published 19 January 2010
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More about the multi-coloured rock pool at Rhossili
Not so pretty now! Earlier I wrote about a multi-coloured rock pool at Rhossili that I had photographed on 26th June 2009. The pool was full of small pieces of brightly coloured plastic and other rubbish. This was highly unusual for this otherwise outstanding and beautiful location. A great deal of flotsam does accumulate on the sand here but I had never observed it migrating to the rock pools before. I commented that, despite its detrimental effect on the environment, it was visually quite attractive.
Several weeks later, on 6th August 2009, I noticed that regurgitated seabird pellets on the sand (near to the outcrop of rocks with the rubbish-filled pool) contained not only mussel shells from the rocks but also small pieces of coloured plastic (see Gulls’ gobbets on Rhossili seashore).
At the same time, the pretty pool was no longer pretty. More rubbish had accumulated and the water itself was stained deep red. The photographs in today’s blog show what it looked like then.
I will be visiting the place again soon. I hope that high tides and stormy seas will have scoured the pool clean. The rubbish, however, will be a continuing problem which washes ashore from hundreds of miles away.
I often see dead and decomposing seabirds on the shore. Most seem to have broken their neck while diving. From now on, I will look to see if the stomach contents remain in situ to determine the extent to which plastic rubbish is being ingested by the birds.
If you would like to read more about the way plastic rubbish is contaminating the environment and entering the food chain, have a look at Pharyngula.
Revision of a post first published 20 October 2009
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Multi-coloured rock pool at Rhossili
Thousands of small multi-coloured pieces of plastic flotsam floating in a rock pool at Spaniard Rocks, Rhossili Bay, Gower, South Wales. Even in the most beautiful of places, flotsam - particularly plastics - can be a problem. At Rhossili Bay, it is said that most of the plastic rubbish comes from as far away as South America as there is nothing but open water between these two places. Very little plastic rubbish is thought to have been generated by local visitors.
By some quirk of fate, small pieces of plastic seem to end up en masse at the extreme north end of the beach. The way that they have accumulated in small rock pools on Spaniard Rocks can be seen in these photographs. However, even though this rubbish shouldn’t be here and it may affect the environment in a detrimental way, potentially damaging habitats for the native seashore animals and plants, there is still a beauty to be found in the juxtaposition of these brightly coloured pieces of floating flotsam against the pale neutral of the Carboniferous limestone; in much the same way that the bright splashes of orange-coloured lichen and yellow-flowered rock plants enliven the stone.
There is a related post to this article. See also Gulls’ gobbets on Rhossili seashore.
Revision of a post first published 13 July 2009
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Gulls’ gobbets on Rhossili seashore
It is not surprising that Banded Wedge Shells are easy pickings for hungry sea birds. In an earlier post, I described how they sometimes lie on the surface of the sand or sit partially buried/exposed on the lowest part of the shore waiting for the tide to come in.
As you walk along the beach at Rhossili on the Gower Peninsula, you can see the evidence for this kind of bird feeding activity. It seems that the gulls regurgitate or cough up the indigestible shells after they have gorged themselves on the bivalved molluscs. These ‘remains of the feast’ occur as small gobbets of matter scattered over the sandy seashore. Sometimes, the debris includes lucky escapees that have apparently survived the experience intact but mostly the shells are broken and the meat removed. In the photograph above the gobbet is clearly associated with the footprints of the bird.
Photographs 1 to 3 are examples of these gull gobbets with mostly Banded Wedge Shells. All three pictures were taken on 9th August 2006.
In photographs 4, 5 and 6 the gobbets are mostly made up of tiny pieces of the chitinous exoskeletons of small Crustaceans: probably including many Sandhoppers – Talitrus saltator (Montagu) – of which there must be millions on that beach. These shots were taken on 15th and 19th August 2011.
Images 7 and 8 were also taken this summer (19th August 2011) and show that the gulls had just been feeding on the young edible mussels growing on rocks, possibly nearby at Burry Holms and Spaniard Rocks. The regurgitated remains are solely mussels, many of which are intact and undigested. These gobbets contrast with some that I found on 6th August 2009 in which the mussel shells were mixed in with small pieces of coloured plastic (Photograph 9 – below). At that time, there were extensive deposits of plastic flotsam debris on the strandline near Spaniard Rocks. When I visited in August this year (2011), the rubbish deposits appeared to have been tempoarily covered by a substantial depth of sand that had been washed up the shore.
What is intriguing about the gobbet shown below in Photograph 9 is its very different composition and constituents. Altogether much more solid and sub-spherical in shape with fragments of common mussel shells and seaweed predominating. Pieces of coloured plastic and translucent pellets are also present.
This gobbet of seabird’s feeding debris was found at the northern end of Rhossili beach towards Bury Holms and Spaniard Rocks. The rocks here are densely covered with mussels. A lot of plastic flotsam tends to naturally accumulate at this end of the beach. One of the rock pools was filled with small pieces of multi-coloured plastic.
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary’s definitions of gobbet include: a lump or mass; a large lump of mouthful of food; a lump of half-digested food.
Revision of a post first published 30 August 2009
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A net full of Dogfish at Rhossili
Flotsam fishing nets on the beach are common. Usually they are empty. However, earlier this year I spotted a bright blue fishing net half-buried in the sand on the strandline at Rhossili in Gower and I was astonished to discover that loads of Dogfish were tangled in its mesh.
It is not possible to say at what stage the fish had been caught in the net – before or after the net was lost from the fishing boat. Fishing for Dogfish in UK waters is banned. Maybe the net was cut adrift when the nature of its catch was identified. We will never know. Sad to think of these fish first being either deliberately or accidentally caught, then cast away or lost, to end up dying on the seashore. What a waste.
Revision of a post first published 5 September 2009
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Decorated driftwood at Rhossili
There are lots of creative people around Gower. Yet again, I have come across an inventive way with flotsam on Rhossili beach. In June I was surprised to find a decorated tree where none should have been. Almost like a poor man’s Christmas tree. A dead driftwood tree had been hoisted up and secured upright in the sand with all sorts of brightly coloured flotsam festooning its branches. It looked so incongruous in the setting, yet provided a wonderful temporary counterpoint against the splendid backdrop of Worms Head and the seascape of Rhossili Bay.
Revision of a post first published 21 July 2009
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Blue flotsam & blue jellyfish at Rhossili
From a distance, from a very long way off, it might have been possible to mistake this piece of unusual flotsam for one of the many blue jellyfish that drift ashore at Rhossil Bay in Gower. Actually, just an inflated blue rubber glove – don’t ask me what it was doing there. Some of the things you find as flotsam on British beaches are intriguing.
This picture shows what the real blue jellyfish looks like. You can see why someone might have thought the glove was one. Only this animal is very much bigger than the flotsam. The diameter of the dome can measure upto 90 cm across. This is the Dustbin-lid Jellyfish, Rhizostoma octopus (Linnaeus), also apparently called a Barrel or Root-mouthed Jellyfish.
The colour of these jellyfish is variable. You can compare this specimen from Rhossili – with the top of the blue dome being uppermost and the oral arms just protruding from the dome or bell - with the specimen featured earlier in Monster jellyfish stranded on Whiteford Sands which was stretched out with the underside (sub-umbrella or oral surface) and oral arms entirely visible. There’s also more information and pictures in the post Pink Dustbin-lid Jellyfish at Rhossili.
The picture below shows one of a yet another colour variation drifting ashore in shallow water with the incoming tide at Rhossili. Unlike many jellyfish, this type does not have a ring of dangerous stinging tentacles around the outer edge of the large dome or umbrella. However, the upper surface of the umbrella (known as the ex-umbrella or aboral surface) is covered with groups of tiny nematocysts or stinging cells that give a slightly matt appearance to the surface when it is out of water.
Revision of a post first published 11 July 2009
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