Spotty crab

Finn discovered this little gem and all of us were perplexed. The closest we could get to an identification was to say that maybe it was a shore crab with a disease or a parasite. The only problem was that the patterns were so balanced and uniform. A tidy, symetrical parasite? In the end after looking in loads of books and on the internet I called Cornwall Wildlife Trust. They suggested I send over a photo and this is what we discovered....

Further to our conversation the other day regarding the strange crab you found at Mevagissey recently; thank you for your excellent photograph. I can confirm that this is indeed a juvenile Shore Crab ( Carcinus maenas). Juvenile Shore Crabs can be a confusing variety of colours, since they adapt to the particular habitat they have been maturing in. As in your picture, they often develop white patches on the carapace to breakup their outline against shell and gravel. I hope this solves the mystery!I do hope that is of some help and please do contact us again if we can be of any more assistance in the future.  Yours,
John Rance-Wildlife Information Service

One bad driver, one dead swan.

You may remeber me talking about the birds around Par beach and the swans that had nested by the ticket booth. Well last week a driver ran over the female swan, didn't kill her instantly but didn't stop either.  She died quite quickly though and now the cygnets have just their dad to take care of him.  It's a sad and unpleasant story especially if  you consider that Mute Swans often pair for life.

A Fair of Flutterbys.

I went for a really gorgeous walk yesterday but it nearly killed me.  You'll have to have a look a the map profile but one half of it seemed to be vertical. The first ascent was zigzagged so whilst bad wasn't awful, the second ascent was straight up - truly foul.  I'm just being a wimp but it was a hot day and I was on a mission and rushing it, so my own fault really.  I wanted to see if I could walk along the coast path from Polkerris to Polridmouth and back in an hour and a half.  The length of the boys' sailing session.  I couldn't.  It didn't help that I set of late and I think if I had the full 90 minutes I could do it but I'd barely have 10 minutes to stop and paddle my poor feet.

However, I was rewarded by the most gorgoues profusion of butterflies.  They were everywhere, I was positively having to swat them out of the way.  The hot blue skies after two weeks of rain seemed to have signalled party mode, to which all the bees and birds were also invited. The red cinnibar moths were  flashing around with little blues and toirtoisheslls playing catch, darting in and out of the heels of the larger slower red admirals, peacocks and whites.  All to a back drop of slowly sloshing waves and lark song.

The return journey was far easy because I quite sensibly stopped at the top. And of course at the end of it I treated the boys and myself to a Treleavens icecream - I had raspberry pavlova, which this week I managed to eat. Last week Finn dropped his on the floor so I very nobly gave him mine :-)

Next week whilst the boys are sailing Steve and I are going to hire a kayak and row over to Polridmouth and probably stop in a cove along the way; much , much easier.

Only some of the photos are, mine three are stock photos, I just couldn't pin those butterflies down.

Polkerris2

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Big, glorious waves.

http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/videomediaplayer.html?vid=5080

A glorious video of big waves this weekend. Tried to embed it but blogger didn't like it.

Wierd, wet and wonderful

How much rain is there in those clouds? Paths that I am used to walking have become streams, I've had more seaweed in my hair than a spa resort and talk about dermal abrasions! Just try walking along Par Beach in 50 mph winds. Poor Harry actually learnt to walk with his eyes closed and everytime he cocked a leg the wind would blow him over.

There's been some odd sights, this wonderful fungi found in the Luxulyan Valley, a dead dolphin on the beach, already tagged as diseased by the Wildlife Trust, waterfalls, gorgeous autumn leaves and huge, huge waves. The Luxulyan Valley walk was a new one to us and was brilliant - am going to write it up tomorrow if I can find half a second.

Haunted Hallowe'en

Oh we had a fabulous night last night. Eldest son was invited to a Hallowe'en party and youngest was feeling a bit left out. We looked at Eden but they had sold out of tickets - apparently it's a fun party so I'm sure we could have had a good time but Hallowe'en isn't about large crowds and laughter is it? - I mean crowds are scary but maybe not in the spooky sense.

Solution? A walk in the Kings Wood in the dark! It was great fun, we took a torch and Harry and set off into the deep dark rustling wood. At times Stephen was abducted by werewolves, the torch failed, creature fell from the trees, things splashed in the swamps and we sloshed and squelshed and screamed ourselves silly.

Youngest son had a blast and eldest wants to repeat the adventure tonight!

Dog Fish- Title says it all