Ballintoy Rockpool Ramble

On 18 July Living Seas Team members Claire, Dave and Emma arrived bright and early at Ballintoy harbour on the North Coast, ready for a morning of rockpool rambling with Andrew from Causeway coast and glens. We were also joined by Christopher, who had come to volunteer with us for the day.

After all of our big green rockpooling nets had been distributed, we ambled down to the shore and began hunting for critters.

It wasn’t long before the first common periwinkle was found, and then the first beadlet anemone, and then Crabs!! Lots of crabs. Brown crabs, green shore crabs and plenty of cute little hermit crabs hiding in their periwinkle shells and top shells. There were big crabs and little crabs, fast crabs and slow crabs, shy crabs and rather nippy crabs.

It wasn’t just crabs which we were finding however, as there were plenty of other creatures hiding in the seaweed. A little shanny (or common blenny) and a stickleback were found amongst the rockpools, as were lots of shrimp and beadlet anemones.

I found a bumblebee clinging on for dear life onto a piece of seaweed, so rescued it and put it back onto dry land!

Everyone really enjoyed the rockpool ramble and there was certainly a very good selection of critters discovered, which were all returned safely to their rockpool homes. After rockpooling everybody went off for their lunch (and ice creams...of which I had two!).

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