I was on such a high at the end of last week, largely thanks to getting clear photos of favourite species. I was keen to return to St Helens a night to see what additional critters we could find.
It ended up being a bit of a crapfest. Previously, this area had been pretty quiet. This small harbour was mostly vacant during the pandemic. It took a while for visitors to start returning to Geelong despite all restrictions being removed. I didn’t realize how spoiled this made us when it came to finding marine life. There were more boats attached to the floating pontoons, so we made sure to keep out distance. We mostly stuck to the boat ramps.
I struggled to find anything new other than a couple of shrimp.
I’ve decided to back off from this location for the rest of the summer, especially as activity is likely to increase. This means I’ll be mostly restricted to Eastern Beach, unless I want to turn an adventure into a daytrip. I’m leaning towards stepping back from marine life in general this summer and focus on getting my health/life in order. This will help me in future seasons 🙂
Marine observing + heat intolerance do not mix!
Nereid Worm
I have been working hard not to ask too many questions in the marine facebook group I’m part of. I don’t want to be that annoying newbie that doesn’t know how to open a field guide.
That said, I’ve been feeling very overwhelmed with identifying marine life. I didn’t know where to start with this blurry photo. I sought help from Audrey Falconer, who has been doing a lot of work classifying the different types of of marine worms. She identified it as belonging to the Nereididae family and said:
It is probably an epitoke. The blue coloration is likely the colour of the eggs.
We had previously seen a Nereid worm in the same location earlier this year. I’m hoping to making more progress with understanding key features over the coming months.
Fish
I’ve put this on iNaturalist and will update if it gets identified.
Botrylloides diegensis
Demosponge
