Late spring is a time when the seas around the UK are teaming with marine life in all shapes and forms as each genera busies themselves with producing the next generation of their species, be it fish, crustaceans, or sea plants.
This can be somewhat disparaging for scuba divers as the result of these endeavors creates a mass of zoo and alga plankton blooms that can reduce the sea’s visibility to that of thick, pea-green soup. However, there is also an upside to these blooms as a small band of hardy members visiting the striking Northumberland shores of Beadnell were about to find out (photo 1.) This stretch of the Northeast coastline offers a series of small bays which are easily accessed from the road, although getting to the shoreline isn’t always that straightforward. As one or two of the bays require a healthy level of fitness to navigate, with scuba kit, uneven pathways and stony cobbles before being able to enter the water.
Nevertheless, for these divers their hard work was rewarded by sightings of different forms of marine life such as jellyfish, who being filter feeders follow in the wake of sea blooms feeding on a banquet of microscopic organisms, and slightly larger individuals such as fish eggs, crab and worm larva caught up in the mix. Like poetry in motion jellyfish propel themselves through the seas by rhythmic muscle contraction and relaxation that forces water in and out of their bodies transporting them silently and elegantly forward. Being the biggest and most dangerous, for divers, the ‘lion’s mane’ jellyfish is one that divers respectively keep their distance from as its extremely long stinging tentacles often break off, floating in the sea unseen by divers. However, this captivating blue jellyfish (photo 2) is smaller, with fewer and weaker stinging tentacle allowing our photographer to observe more closely and safely to marvel at its delicate and almost iridescent colouring. Another, closeup and safe encounter was with this oblong-like ‘comb’ jelly fish (photo3.) Although not classified as a true jellyfish, being regarded as an evolutionary offshoot of the jellyfish phylum it is because of its physical appearance it is deemed to be a jellyfish.
As with some land-based animals species parenting skills also differ in the marine world. In the case of a jellyfish their development to adult hood rests almost on a wing and a pray, being set adrift in the sea from the beginning of its existence. Not so this little guy a ‘Lumpsucker fish,’ who scores as one of the better marine parents (Main.) Firstly, he uses his nest building skills to attract a female to lay her eggs, where after she returns to the good life at sea. Then, this stay -at- home dad takes over by fertilising the eggs then sticking around to protect his offspring by fanning them to keep them oxygenated and by valiantly seeing off any predators with a mind to eating them. Late spring is the best time to encounter a Lumpsucker fish up close like this as once the eggs hatch his job is done and he too returns to sea.
During the club’s summer break Cleveland Divers can still be contacted via their ’Facebook’ page ‘The Diving Club-Cleveland.’ Or on 0796060852
