Posted: Monday 23rd July 2018 by LivingSeas
On the Monday 23 July 2018, myself and Ulster Wildlife Living Seas Manager Jade Berman, headed towards Cranfield Beach in County Down to go on a Shark and Ray egg case hunt.
Fortunately the weather was sunny and warm. Upon arrival we set up our Ulster Wildlife feather flag to let people know of our starting point. Soon enough people interested in the egg case hunt gathered and from there I talked to the children about what we would be doing during the day.
I showed the children the different egg cases that could be found and explained that more than likely they would be entangled in sea weed higher up on the beach due to them being very light. When I showed them a few egg cases they said that they felt weird and didn’t feel real and more like plastic.
From there we made our way towards the beach where we began our search for the elusive egg cases!
From the start we focused on patches of dried up seaweed in hopes of some signs of egg cases. Along the way we discovered Jellyfish, crabs, blue mussels and cockles as well as sea squirts! It was great to show the kids all the different species found on Cranfield Beach.
Fortunately all our dedicated work did pay off as in the end we were able to find 4 egg cases in total, which was more then had every been found previously at Cranfield beach. All the egg cases found were that of the Lesser-spotted dogfish.
It was a great afternoon were we all built our exploration skills and the children and parents were able to discover something new and submit their records for the SeaDeep Project. You can find out more at www.SeaDeepNI.org
Edel Parr
Living Seas Volunteer
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