On Wednesday afternoon, we met with Ranger Sally (FI Bird Observatory) and Nick (our local nature expert) at South Lighthouse for a rock-pooling session.  Some of the children’s finds included brittle starfish, tiny shrimp-like creatures, shore crabs, anemones and a variety of sea-snails. We used an identification chart to find out the names of different types of seaweed.  Nick took a couple of samples home to examine further and confirmed that the tiny banded snail that Luca found is called Cingula trifasciata and is a first record for Fair Isle.  Nick explained that it has been recorded across Orkney with a scattering of records in Shetland (according to National Biodiversity Network).

The children had a wonderful time and it was a lovely, sunny day to be outdoors, learning more about the flora and fauna of our beautiful isle. Thank you Sally and Nick!