What's On My Tideline

Puffins Sharks and Rays

The recent storms have made the tideline a very unusual place to explore

Sadly I was very unlucky to find a dead Puffin washed up, at first I thought it must be an Oystercatcher but the Puffin has such a distinctive beak I knew exactly what it was 

I also knew this was very unusual as I have never seen a Puffin in my part of Cornwall 

I reported my find to DEFRA (Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) who collected the bird for testing to try to establish the cause of death, which I will let you know as soon as they let me know 

Heartbreakingly there are more reports of dead Puffins almost daily 

It was reported in the local media they died of exhaustion and starvation because they can't see their food source in the churned up storm waters

Lets hope the waters calm and the Puffin population recovers

Another side effect of the storms are the amount of Shark and Ray egg cases being washed up, commonly known as Mermaids Purses

I picked up loads on two separate visits to one of my local beaches

Under advisement I contacted the Shark Trust who use the finds to help monitor the local Shark and Ray populations

They sent me a couple of charts to identify the different egg case species, which I found quite difficult

Other than a few obvious choices, the others looked pretty much the same to me and I was worried about giving them the wrong information 

The Trust were amazing and said they could identify them from photos I’d taken and sent me the results

This is how it went:

• 9 Small spotted Cat shark egg cases

• 6 Nursehound egg cases

• 3 Blonde Ray egg cases 

• 2 Small-eyed Ray egg cases 

• 1 Thornback Ray egg case

• 77 Spotted Ray egg cases

Footnote: Sadly the Puffin died of starvation and was emaciated