ROCK-POOLING AND LOOKING FOR THE SHONEY?
Text and photographs by David Marshall
Photograph of Sue and David Marshall by Paul Barrow

The morning of Sunday 12th September was absolutely beautiful as our next Twinning event took a small band of members from STAMPS and Ryedale AS to the pier at South Shields for a very special morning.
SS1 - On such a clear morning the view over the bay from South Shields pier to Tynemouth Priory was stunning.
Paul Barrow had organised a rockpool trip and had gone to much trouble making sure everything was right, including health and safety aspects, for what would be a very interesting 'creature hunt'.

SS3 - As our photograph of John Douthwaite and grandson Daniel Charters shows the area we had chosen to sample is quite extensive. The mounded area around the pier is dotted with rockpools and, as we would find out, many of the rocks here are well anchored into incredibly soft sand. For such a large stretch of beach things were incredibly quiet so only passing Swans and aircraft distracted from our task.SS2 - A typical rockpool at South 





John and Daniel are joined by Paul Barrow (rear of our photograph) and Mark Lyons as our 'creature hunt' begins. Our task was not easy as we enthusiastically raked through watery sand and turned over rock in pursuit of whatever creatures lurked in the pools.








Wendy and Amy Charters plot their next move while Bede Kerrigan is in for a nasty surprise - the bite of a not very hospitable Crab.
Paul 







Sue and David Marshall busy at work.
After much searching we managed to uncover a couple of small fish, several Crabs, a living Starfish, large shells complete with occupants and brilliantly coloured red anemones. As we finished this part of our morning Amy carefully placed all of the creatures we had found back into places of safety.

Part 2 >>