Here's the latest from Ray, sorry its a little late:
I've had an excellent couple of weeks, with seven new species going onto the Ray's Rambles list which now stands at 962, my year list has leapt to 291.
A tiny orange fungi, coral spot fungus, was found on several twigs laying at the side of the car park and two bright red weevils, apious frumentarium, on the Island Hide window - these weevils have no common name. The real interest has been on the beach, where there was a major wreck of sea creatures following a northerly gale. There were literally tens of thousands of starfish and tubeworms and millions of razorshells washed up. The tubeworms, (pectinaria sp) live in long, fragile, conical tubes made out of sand grains. Virtually all the razorshells were of an American species that was introduced into The Wash several years ago, they are smaller than our pod razors and have a distinct curve in the shell. I also found the remains of a large lobster, the shell of a great scallop and a few common sunstars. Other creatures found that were already on my list were at least 20 dabs, hundreds of slipper limpets and dozens of green shore crabs. I had a very interesting conversation with a man who was doing a commercial shellfish survey, he told me about the American razors, and how, if you crush a piece of hornwrack, it will give off a strong smell of lemons, hence the local fishermen's name for it - lemonweed. He also answered a question that has bugged me for years. I've often heard people talk of 'swinners', I thought that they were undersized crabs, but it turns out that it is the local name for the green shore crab. You live and learn! Ray Kimber.