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six-armed cushion star

Exploring The Apollo Bay Rockpools At Night.

February 4, 2018 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

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 🙂

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

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Zebra fish, Girella zebra.

Snail

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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.

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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.

Filed Under: Apollo Bay Tagged With: Apollo Bay Harbour, red-handed shrimp, six-armed cushion star, Zebra fish

Watching Moving Sea Stars

February 2, 2018 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

As I’ve mentioned previously, we noticed a lot of overturned seastars on our recent visits. Annoyingly, we didn’t know that they had been overturned on purpose. We assumed it was natural behaviour and took advantage of the photographic opportunities.

These photos were mostly taken with my Samsung phone, as the macro lens would only get a little bit in focus at a time. I was trying to experiment with different angles and lighting.

In the future, I’ll focus on the seastars that are moving naturally.

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Filed Under: Apollo Bay Tagged With: Apollo Bay Harbour, six-armed cushion star

Air Breathing Limpit Stuck In Tube Feet Of Seastar

January 23, 2018 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

We were exploring the rockpools in the Apollo Bay Harbour. We had intended to go to Marengo but an electrical emergency in Geelong and a 36-degree day thwarted our plans. After 7pm the weather started to get below 30 so we headed out, desperate to explore.

Mum had noticed a lot of seastars were upside down and called me over to photograph them. She noticed their purple ‘feet’ were moving a lot and her phone wasn’t good enough to capture them.

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I noticed this limpet moving across the sea stars ‘feet’ and posted in a Facebook group, asking about the behaviour.

It turns out that it is uncommon for them to be upside down and is often caused by overenthusiastic rockpool explorers. Often, children will pick them up to look at them but not put them back properly. In these situations, it is recommended that I try to right them where possible.

In this case, the seastar (Meridiaster gunni) was grabbing onto whatever it could and trying to attach to a surface. It wasn’t a carnivore in this situation.

I now know what to do next time and will focus on photographing the ones that are moving.

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Filed Under: Apollo Bay Tagged With: Air Breathing Limpet, Apollo Bay Harbour, six-armed cushion star

Tide Out at Eastern Beach

August 3, 2015 by Jade Craven Leave a Comment

Yesterday, Sethy and I visited Eastern Beach. I was there for the weekend and had promised him and adventure. Initially, we were going to go to Balyang Sanctuary. But Balyang is close to where he lives – it’s so much more exciting at the beach because of the multiple types of environments.

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We were so lucky when we got there. The tide was out, the furthest out I have ever seen. This meant there was teeny tiny rockpools in between the promenade and Limeburners Point. It was because of this that I really regretted bringing the camera, although the iphone captured all the little animals we saw.

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We saw multiple types of starfish. Most were under rocks, the larger ones were harder to find. I’m not knowledgeable enough to ID them.

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We’ve learned about tracks in the recent Cadets meeting, so I took photos of some that we saw. It can be very hard to find bird ones, either the sand is too hard or they get washed away.

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There was a lot of snail shells everywhere.

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And mussels.

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And slimy stuff

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Sea urchins

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And this awesome slug! No idea what it is or how to find out.

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It was an impromptu adventure but its reminded me how much the little dude LOVES rockpools. I try to incorporate other animals into our adventures but I don’t drive and birds are easy to find. Will be looking out for accessible, awesome sea places to visit in the future.

Filed Under: Eastern Beach Tagged With: eastern beach, purple sea urchin, six-armed cushion star

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