The Rock Pools (by sarah)
(Back blogged due to server migration issues)
On the last day beach outing in South Africa we came across the rock pools with many and varied creatures, some bright and some not so bright.
There were anenomes, barnicals, fish, clams, many bright shells and so on. Though some where deeper than others and all had fresh (though sea salty) water washing over them as we stood there watching. Some were deeper than others.
Mary was most taken with the red anenome 🙂
I liked the fact that the ripples in the sea water cast little rainbows even over the more subtly coloured creatures like this clam.
And as promised here are the fish 🙂 or some of the fish anyway 🙂
I probably would not have found the rock pools if Lionel had not pointed them out as they are sunk into fractures in the rocks which are slippery with algea. They were worth the slipping risk!
The girls loved the rockpools
Alaric spent ages with them looking in their wibbly wobbly depths 🙂
I just loved how you could see a whole little ecosystem there contained in a cradle of rock 🙂 It made me miss Ewan Laurie lessons and paleobiology and being shown byssal threads on field trips 🙂 I may have board the kids with all this along with dentition and muscle scars on shells which apparently I tell them everytime we are at a beach (oops!).
We actually came home with a book on the oceanic life in South Africa and I will attempt to look up some of what we saw. It also made me determined to do more with the poems and stories I've written about rock pools in the past 🙂
Geology, Relatives, South Africa, The Family | sarah | 
Fri 19th Aug 2016 7:01 pm
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