Seaside trip

I have not posted for a while because I have be so busy. This past weekend was the first holiday I have been on in a very long time. I thought it would be nice to do a post about what I saw and did, and show some of the photos I took.

We stayed In a cottage in Wangford in Suffolk. Wangford is a small village near Southwold. Southwold is a picturesque town centered around its lighthouse and brewery. The Adnams brewery was founded in 1872 and is and was the main employer in the town. I used to Visit Southwold on holiday as a child and can remember them delivering casks to the local pubs by horse and cart (they ended this only 2006).

On our first morning we visited RSPB Minsmere. Upon arrival, once we had traveled through the obligotery gift shop, we walked out into a beautiful sunny morning. We walked along paths through the marsh which was made up of areas of open water between tall reeds phragmities sp. and reedmace typha sp. Once we got nearer the coast and walked over a sand dunes I got my first sight of the sea. Along these dunes I spotted lots of sea kale Crambe maritima growing.

The flats at Minsmere

Phone photo over the dunes at Minsmere

Sea kale Crambe maritima

While walking along the shale beach I found a mermaids purse or "shark egg". From the shape and a bit of googling I think it is probably the egg of some variety of Skate Raja sp., So a ray rather than a shark or dogfish.

Mermaids purse

 The beach with better camera

On the way out of Minsmere I was lucky enough to snap a photo of a darter dragonfly resting on a handrail between hunting midges.

Dragonfly

I accomplished another one of the things I wanted to do later that day while at another beach near Covehithe hamlet. I went in the sea, to me a trip to the seaside is not complete without going in at least once, even if it is October. The sea was quite rough and the water pretty cold, but not as bad as I was expecting and I manged to wade out and swim a few strokes.

Getting in!

On the other side of the beach from the sea there was a marsh and this marsh i saw an egret searching food. a beautiful bird, I wish I had taken a photo. I also collected a piece of drift wood with some living algae on on this beach which I brought home and added to my refugium. I know this a risk of adding nasties to my tank but I wanted to do add it anyway. 

Driftwood - floating

On the second day we stopped to take photos at the field of pumpkins near the village.

Pumpkins, all ready for haloween

we then visited southwold pier and i got a photo on my phone of Southwold with the sun breaking through cloud and hitting the lighthouse.

lucky photo

Sunday was pretty windy, and a lot of foam from organics in the water was building up on the shore, like a giant protein skimmer.

Foam

The other place we visited on Sunday was Southwold harbor. The harbor is home to a reduced but still working fishing fleet. There was large amount of what looked like marsh saphire Salicornia europaea. 

Marsh saphire Salicornia europaea.

All in all I had a great time and it was very nice to go somewhere different with lots of new scenery and new species (to me) to study.