Sand and gravel seabed is a difficult place to live, with no shelter, and nowhere to hide. Just a few specialists have adapted to life in this desert.

But one shellfish hasn’t just adapted to life in this barren place, it has decided to build a nest big enough for him and ALL his neighbours. Meet the Flame Shell, a 30mm bivalve with big ideas. It spins sticky fibres together, bonds small stones and shells, and makes a labyrinth of chambers with walls and a roof.

A diver swimming past could easily assume this was a common rocky reef, with all the life you would normally expect to find. But these are castles built on sand. They are fragile, and have been put under pressure by scallop dredgers, bottom trawlers, fish farms, and pollution. They’re mostly found in Scottish Lochs, in fast-flowing channels where trawling doesn’t take place. In 2012, a team from Heriot Watt University discovered a flame shell reef in Loch Alsh with an estimated 100 million flame shells, where a reef has been built across 75 hectares of seabed. That’s kind of like shellfish building their own underwater Dubai.

So these are no ordinary shellfish. And nor do they look ordinary – imagine a small scallop with a See-You-Jimmy hat on. Bright orange fringes lick from their shells like flames, the shade varying across the population. They jet along in flamboyant bursts, opening and closing their shells. It’s easy to imagine them singing a song from the Muppet show, or calling instructions to their co-workers as they build the next part of their impossible palace in the marine desert.

Flame-shells are our new favourite shellfish. And no, we don’t eat them.

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Images by Andy, words by Jackie

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Diving into Loch Sween, the writhing arms of brittlestars welcome you with a bluish haze of movement.  Occasional slender peacock worms pop closed when they sense you pass.  Moon jellyfish feed and pulsate, their pink edges gleaming in the sunlight.  A circus of life on the seabed bustles together: crabs, gobies, sea cucumbers, spiny starfish, flat worms, so much tiny, fascinating life.  This incredible colony exists because of Maerl.

Maerl is a collective term for several species of very slow-growing red seaweed that form hard, chalky skeletons.  It is coral-like and grows into large reefs.  Maerl thrives in clean, fast-flowing water, sheltered from pounding seas, and is found in estuaries and Scottish Lochs.  Hedgehog maerl dominates the dive site at Caol Scotnish, Loch Sween.  It forms loose fist-shaped balls on the seabed with protruding branches, at times thickly covering the seabed.  Further down the Loch, at Taynish Narrows, another species that resembles Twiglets dominates the seabed.  This looks similar to the hedgehog maerl but without the fist-shaped base.  Both of these species have formed thick, loose beds with dead maerl beneath, turned white after it dies.

Maerl beds are fragile and are easily damaged and have declined in most areas.  Pressures on Maerl include scallop dredging, bottom trawling, fish farming, and pollution.  Maerl used to be dredged off Falmouth and used for fertilizer but this was stopped in 2005.  It is now recognized that Maerl forms an important ecosystem that was previously overlooked.  The nooks and cranies in these beds make them an ideal nursery.  The vibrancy of life they support make them a magical dive.

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Images by Andy, words by Jackie

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In our last blog, we introduced the superstar Tompot Blenny, so cool he deserves a blog post all of his own. 

As the most inquisitive residents of Swanage pier, Tompots will usually come for a look.  They seem to love underwater video cameras with reflective dome ports where they can admire themselves.  As they tilt their heads to the side, you could almost imagine them saying, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall…”

And who wouldn’t find them beautiful, with those striking lappets, growing like trees from the top of their head?  Or those blubber lips?  Or those large popping eyes?  Somehow, in an ensemble of ugly components, they put it together and make it cute.  Artists, they are.  Superstar artists.

We were lucky enough to witness a feeding frenzy when returning rod and line fishermen dumped a pile of squid bait over the side.  A swarm of tompots descended and it vanished.

Here’s some Tompot Blenny action from last summer under the pier…

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Images by Andy, words by Jackie

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We’re busy servicing, repairing, and renewing our dive and camera gear, getting ready for a busy summer underwater.  The first dive of the year is always about checking kit works, getting back into diving rhythm, and making sure our drysuits aren’t too tight after all that Christmas pudding. 

For those near the south coast, one of the best places for the first dive of the year is under Swanage pier, a wildlife gem on Dorset’s Jurassic coast.  In just four metres of water, thick piles support the pier above, and a unique habitat below.  Shining silver sea bass swim past to check you out.  John Dory watches with his all-seeing eye, hides in the sea grass, then turns sideways and disappears.  A black goby comes out from under a rock and changes colour.  Common prawns stand at the mouth of their rocky retreats, sifting the passing tide for food.  Short-spined sea scorpions blend into their surroundings, ready to ambush unsuspecting prey.  And last but not least, one of the stars of Swanage pier, the Tompot Blenny, manages to be cute and ugly at the same time.  But… he’s the Swanage superstar, so we’ll give him a blog all of his own, right after this…

Here’s some footage from the time we spent diving at Swanage pier last summer.

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Images by Andy, words by Jackie

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We’re delighted to share our new short wildlife film with you – ARCTIC CHARR: RELICS OF THE ICE AGE.

Ennerdale’s Arctic Charr attempt to swim upriver to spawn. But the water’s acidic, and nest materials are blocked upstream. This film tells the story of people working together to save one of Britain’s rarest fish from extinction.

Andy was the first person to film Arctic Charr in England, back in 2011.  A couple of months ago, we went back to tell the whole story.  Filmed over three weeks in November 2013, ARCTIC CHARR includes never-before-seen night vision shots of Arctic Charr mating.

This is the first collaboration between SubSeaTV’s Andy Jackson and Jackie Daly, who share a vision to make story-driven wildlife, shipwreck, and underwater films.

We hope you enjoy the film.

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Images by Andy, words by Jackie

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