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Seasearch East Marine life still needs support - see Marine Reserves Now! |
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Seasearch East Marine life still needs support - see Marine Reserves Now! |
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| Talks Courses Diving History Forms Books Links Photos |
East
Anglia During the past 5 diving seasons we've been taking part in the Marine Conservation Society's Seasearch program. The aim is to establish a continuing survey of the UK's marine wildlife to identify important habitats, vulnerable species, monitor change and better understand the effects of human and natural and influences. The East coast is the least surveyed of the UK's marine environments. The often uncooperative nature of the North sea doesn't help as diving is very weather dependant. On top of that we have negligible 'reef' which means most diving is distant from shore*, around wrecks, but when it's good it's really good. We have large colourful reports on our actives in 2008 and 2009 if you want to find what we've been doing. 2010 already looks as though it will be a considerably busier year. *With a few exceptions - notably Norfolk's shore diveable shipwrecks, the Vera and Rosalie and Sheringham's chalk gullies Dawn (assisted by Rob) is the Eastern region coordinator for Seasearch. We try to contact as many local clubs as possible to promote Seasearch, arrange courses and events. The aim is to foster a group of keen divers to help survey the local marine wildlife. Why not visit the main Seasearch website to find out more about the project and joining the Marine Conservation Society or contact us about courses and with any questions you have. If you are a group or club who are interested in Seasearch just let us know and we'll be very happy to visit and explain more about it - in return we'd love to hear what you've seen on your dives in the region. We're trying to foster the Shoresearch intertidal survey in East Anglia too. It's a shore based wildlife survey which anyone could take part in on a coastal day out. We're running marine wildife courses in Norfolk and Suffolk to get the ball rolling. Talks back to top Want to know more about Seasearch, why not invite us for a chat? We visited lots of clubs in 2009: We've already been to see clubs in Norwich (two) and Wisbech and have a visit to Cambridge coming up We've lost the budget we had for subsidising those visits so we'll ask nicely that clubs, please, cover our costs. We promise we'll give you an entertaining and informative chat in return. We also speak on marine life for local groups, events and dinners all over Norfolk and Suffolk. We are booked more than 12 months ahead so don't hang around! Courses back to top Our first two courses for 2010 are set... 17/18th
April Marine Species ID, Sheringham with Frances Dipper
10/11th July Seasearch Observer, Sheringham + 2 club Observer courses in planning Rob is assisting at this Seasearch North East event 5/6th June Seasearch Surveyor, Eyemouth With more on the way: Winter Photography fun - pool based 28th Feb (done) Dutch Photography workshop - TBC July Norfolk Photography workshop - TBC 2009 was pretty busy, see what you missed Fish ID for divers - Spring 09 News with Frances Dipper Seasearch Observer courses in Sheringham, Lowestoft and Sea Palling We've had other club and shop enquiries too so there may be other dates appearing. We may also add a 'dry' course for environmental workers as an introduction to the project. The content would be the same but there would be more time spent explaining the complications of surveying underwater :-) Diving back to top When there's decent visibility we'll be diving regularly... some dates will appear on the main Seasearch calendar or e-mail us to see what's planned. It's hard to keep this page up to date so we don't tend to list dive dates here. 'Meet the divers' events with Norfolk Wildlife Trust These were
great fun last year. A chance to introduce the public to diving off the
North Norfolk coast. The idea is to shore dive
and share photos and findings with the general public, who will have
been warned!
Sea Palling - 7m RIB - ~£25 for 2 dives, 1 wreck 1 drift. There'll be
a £5 rebate for completed Seasearch forms. £25 is
payable in advance to secure your place and non refundable unless the
boat doesn't go.
Dates: TBA N.B. We were very lucky to have our plans for Sea Palling rescued by GYSAC and plan to join them again in 2010. N.B. 2 We were totally let down by the outfit we originally booked with and the MCS are still trying to recover their deposit money. If you would like to check who to avoid please get in touch. Lowestoft - Sexy 14m hardboat - £50 a day for 2 dives There'll be
a partial refund for completed Seasearch forms.
£50 is payable in advance to secure your place and non refundable unless the boat doesn't go. These will be long days as we will dive sites (probably both wrecks) on slack. We have the following dates booked:TBA Although 3 of our 4 dates were weather affected the trip out to the Alto in June made up for it and Adrian was a great host. It's hard to keep this page up to date, we don't tend to list shore and inshore dive dates here. There are Seasearch dives planned nationally throughout the year - see the main Seasearch site for details. Qualification FAQ: When there's diving planned with events we usually have questions about the level of qualification and insurance that Seasearch events need so we've added a page to explain - in short it's easy if you are a regular club diver but PADI divers usually need 3rd party insurance. Local Seasearch History back to top We have a large, colourful report on our activies in 2008 if you want to find out what we did in more detail. 2009 Summary: Coming soon! 2008 Summary: Observer courses were run in Sheringham (June) and Norwich (September) and we were very lucky to have Jim Anderson come down from Scotland to tutor our Nudibranch ID course in June. When the vis did arrive we had a pretty good diving season ourselves, out with clubs and our Observers. Observation and Survey forms were returned from a wider range of sites than before although we still struck out for Suffolk and Essex - we desparately need to find active divers to cover those coasts. As well as documenting our favourite shore dive wrecks, we adopted them too - we're still waiting for the CSA to get in touch. 2007 Summary: Observer courses were run in May, June and October. A course in August at the Orca Scuba Diving Academy for the Essex Biodiversity Project added another 6 Observer candidates! Our last course of the year (6/7th October) ran sucessfully and another 7 Observers completed their first 2 dives and are well on their way to surveying. We know it can sometimes be a little tough to get past the first 2 supervised dives and to complete the next 3 assessed forms... which also meant we have enjoyed the company on our dives of some divers from previous courses elsewhere. It has been very rewarding to see how much purpose the course has added to their diving. We got a couple of articles into the local press, the first on Seasearch and the second on the campaign for a Marine Bill We planned to continue diving locally through the winter but the weather conditions haven't been favourable since the storms in November. We hope to eventually complete a continuous annual survey but maybe that will have to wait for another year :-) Contact us for updates on the next trip and recent conditions. If you fancy bringing your friends along our guide to North Norfolk's pair of shore diveable shipwrecks, the Vera and Rosalie, is here. Forms back to top Seasearch The Observer form and the new Surveyor form can be found on the main Seasearch recording page which also includes guidance on filling them in. Shoresearch Shoresearch isn't a national program, it was devised by the Kent Wildlife Trust, and these forms are have been developed for East Anglia. Shore surveying can be quite informal so long as you report What, Where and When you are recording. There are two versions of the form, both essentially the same, to download as PDF files: The first preloaded with lots of names, for iSpy fans and convenience in typical surveys
and the second with less names for those want more space or are finding different species Seasearch books etc back to top
Links back to top We're part of a network of Seasearch regions around the country and in our surveys we use several very useful sites to help with our species ID. Other Seasearch Groups Scotland www.mcsuk.org North East www.seasearchne.org.uk East Anglia www.seasearcheast.org.uk (here) - www.1townhouses.co.uk - (mainly photos) Kent www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk Hampshire www.hwt.org.uk Devon www.seasearchdevon.co.uk Cornwall www.cornwallwildlifetrust.org.uk S & W Wales www.wwmc.org.uk/seasearch_sww.html Northern Ireland www.seasearch.co.uk/northernireland Durham Coast www.durhamheritagecoast.org Flamborough www.flamboroughuk.net Helpful ID Sites - Good places to help your species spotting The Museum of Ulster's Wildlife Encyclopedia, Habitas - has made lots of useful infomation available to all. All hail Bernard Picton a true web information hero and Claire Goodwin who seems to do a lot of the work ;-) Their Encyclopedia of Marine Life of Britain and Ireland is a great resource: www.habitas.org.uk/marinelife/ They have a section on The Sponges of Britain and Ireland: www.habitas.org.uk/marinelife/sponge_guide/ Bernard's book Nudibranchs of the British Isles is out of paper print but thankfully still online: www.seaslug.org.uk/nudibranchs/ Others: Marlin, the Marine Biological Association's ID project - www.marlin.ac.uk/sah/species_information.php Jim Anderson's Scottish Nudibranch site is excellent - www.scottishnudibranchs.co.uk/ The Field Studies Council (FSC) has a guide to the seashore: http://www.theseashore.org.uk/theseashore/SpeciesPages/Spp%20Classification.htm International Year of Biodiversity - www.biodiversityislife.net UK Photos back to top We're often told we must be masochists as we enjoy diving around the UK and in many ways prefer it to some of the blue water diving that we've done. The UK offers varied and often beautiful diving with diverse wildlife and habitats. We're not pure wreck enthusiasts but appreciate their role as natural reefs which are magnets for everything from cod to cuttlefish. British wildlife is often less extrovert than its tropical counterparts but rewards the effort made to see it. If you still don't believe British dives can be colourful and interesting perhaps a browse through our UK galleries will help to change your mind :-) Feel free to get in touch:
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