red-handed shrimp

My family had decided to do night fishing along the harbour at night. I was planning to tag along and watch, as we often see more fish action at night. Then I realized: wouldn’t there be more activity in the rockpools at night?

My plan was correct. All I had was a little torch and my phone for photography. These conditions don’t lend themselves to decent photos in the best of conditions. I’m proud of what I got, considering.

I was right: the activity was different. Many creatures were a lot more active, especially the shrimp and snails.

Next time I’ll be returning with other family members and better lighting 🙂

Not enough detail to figure out what this is. I’m also learning that some sea anemones are really difficult to ID.

Zebra fish, Girella zebra.

Snail

I can’t be 100% certain because of the angle, but it has been suggested that it is Austrocochlea porcata. It’s so awesome to see the underside and actually watch it move.

Shrimp

The first couple are red-handed shrimps. I’ve seen them during the day but their markings are so much more different at night. I’m not sure what the last two are. Next time, I will focus on getting the identifying details.

I also may have dropped my phone on the rocks at night. I definitely don’t recommend it. I spent about 10 minutes pacing back and forth along a 10 metre area with a poor quality torch. It was facing down so naturally couldn’t pick up on any light. I was so far from family and couldn’t ask them to call.

I was so lucky I was able to find it. I could have walked to my parents and asked them to phone, but I was uncertain as to whether or not it was in the water. It was around this point I also saw a fox walk onto the beach.

I’ve learned to take a better bag and torch for next time.

The rockpools at Marengo have always been a hit with our family. We had a ball when visiting them in 2014. I didn’t enjoy them nearly as much this time.

Sethy was super competitive. It was less about discovering cool creatures and who could find the most of each species or see something first.
I was sick and my back was hurting. On the second visit, I stopped caring about what I could see and just look for interesting places to sit.

That doesn’t negate the awesomeness of the place, although there were no sooty oystercatchers there this time. Just that next time, I may do another activity or even opt to do rockpooling by myself.

Day 1:

On this day, we got here just after low tide. It was cool but we found that the water was a little bit too far out, which made it harder to find the more interesting critters. I did find the below plant/animal but I have no idea what it is.

I looked for rockpools in interesting shapes. Some were in the shapes of male genitalia, because I am immature and wanted to send them to my partner. Others were like the picture below and kinda resembled a stingray.

I saw a lot of welcome swallows at every beach we went to. The below was the best photograph out of all of them due to it actually being in focus.

These were apparently snail trails – although the phrase made me think of something else.

Seastars

There was a lot of seastars, which is always fun. They were all species we had seen before, but it was fun to photograph them from different angles.

We did notice some writing carved into the rocks. It made me and dad wonder just how difficult it may have been to carve it. I know the rocks bloody hurt when my ankle went the wrong way and I fell onto them. (My ankle still hurts, btw.)

We did find a decent number of crabs that we presumed to be dead.

I have no idea what the below animal is but Seth thought it was awesome.

Day 3:

Our last full day in Apollo Bay. All of us adults were feeling sick in various ways, so it was mostly Sethy running around and getting excited. We noticed a lot of families here this time. We visited 2 hours before low tide to see if there would be more animals.

Dad was fascinated by the rocks – how it looked like someone had cut pieces of it cleanly like with a cake. It made perfect sense to me but it made me step back and look at the rock formations.

I got this photo to send Glenn because part of it is shaped like a penis.

As with this picture.

More seastars:

Seal Colony

Now that we had done the seal tour, we knew exactly where on the two little islands to look for the seals from shore. I may have gotten excited thinking I had seen a seal on the earlier trip when it turned out to be a kayaker.

In the below photo, you can barely see where they are. They are about two thirds of the way across the image. Photographing them from this angle isn’t really worth it, but it meant I could get interesting photos of waves hitting the rocks.

If you zoom in a bit closer, you can get a bit more detail. I noticed some read on the above image so took a couple of photos and cropped it to see what was going.

You can clearly see a bloodied cormorant in the above picture. I don’t know how it happened but it made me wonder – do seals eat cormorants?

I also saw an egret on the smaller island, and managed to get some shots as it flew off. No idea what species it is at this point but I’ve kinda given up caring.

Other animals:

We didn’t see any fish in the rockpools. I saw a medium sized one but naturally, a certain 7 year old scared it away. The below two animals are quite interesting even though I have no idea what they are.

Sethy was pretty impressed with this crab, as it seemed to have two layers of protection on its tummy.

No idea what the below is. Again, so much to learn! I will be sitting down and hitting the apps/books once I’ve caught up on things.

Finally, the below two images are of interesting rocks:

I can’t get enough of rockpools, but I’m craving less research and discovery with my future adventures. I’m feeling a bit burnt out. I want to hike for the sake of hiking, photograph something because it is beautiful and not because it may be useful to someone.

Birdwatching is no longer the escape from depression like it once was.

Exploring The Apollo Bay Rockpools At Night.