Combe Valley Countryside Park

The most common gull along our stretch of coast, they can always be seen along the shore and will always scavenge in waste bins when the opportunity arises.

Almost as common as the Herring Gull, but a little smaller, they are very distinctive in the summer. However the black head fades to white in the winter, all except for a small dot on each side of the head.

Larger than a Herring Gull, and with a distinctly black back, these gulls can sometimes be seen along our shore.

These large black seabirds can often be seen perched on any handy structure along the shoreline and have a habit of spreading their wings to dry. They can sometimes be seen diving for fish. They also roost in trees around the pool near Pebsham Farm.

The commonest wader along our coast, the Turnstone can often be seen in small flocks hunting for insects, crustaceans and molluscs. About the size of a blackbird, it has very distinctive black and white wing markings when in flight. The Turnstone is a winter visitor but some non-breeding birds stay throughout the summer.

About the size of a pigeon, the Oystercatcher has a long orange-red bill, which it uses to probe for food, and a distinctive white wing stripe in flight. Oystercatchers are resident all year but are more common along our shore in the winter where they can often be found with Turnstones.

This plant has very long roots that search for fresh water flowing through the shingle, which they help to stabilise.

Another shingle specialist that is well established along our stretch of the shore.

This invasive alien is well established along the cliffs at Galley Hill where it occurs in both the pink and yellow forms.

A plant brought to England by the Romans as an edible plant, although it has now fallen out of favour. On the cliffs at Galley Hill.

Grows happily on the shingle near to some beach huts.

This is growing just below the cliffs near Galley Hill.

Starfish can be found in the rockpools and are occasionally washed up onto the seashore. This Common Starfish feeds on mussels and oysters.

Hornwrack looks like a seaweed but is actually a Bryozoan composed of a colony of tiny animals called zooids that feed on even smaller organisms. When fresh it smells of lemons.

Jellyfish sometimes get washed up along the shore. This Barrel Jellyfish was upside down, about 30 cm across and has 8 thick tentacles. Jellyfish stings can be painful so don’t handle any you find.

As a crab grows it has to moult as each shell is a fixed size. Consequently it backs out of the shell leaving all the hard parts behind. The soft crab is then extremely vulnerable until it has swollen by about 20% and developed new limbs and shell.

Sharks, Skates and Rays lay eggs on the seabed and sometimes the empty egg cases get washed up on the shore. Commonly known as mermaids purses.

These are the internal bones of the Cuttlefish, used to give it buoyancy. Commonly used as a dietary supplement for caged birds they can also be carved to make molds for casting jewelry.

The Common Mussel grows in abundance on the rocks and is a favourite food of many seabirds.

Limpets are renowned for the strength of their attachment to rocks and groynes. They possess a ‘radula’ which is like a scraping tongue which they use to scrape algae off rocks.

Piddocks burrow into soft rock to protect their rather brittle shell. Only its siphon protrudes from the burrow so that it can feed. There are several places along the shore where old Piddock shells have been exposed as the rock has worn away.

These tiny barnacles colonise anything that doesn’t move so some groynes and rocks virtually disappear under a colony. Although they look a bit like small limpets they are in fact crustaceans related to crabs and lobsters.

These winkles are close to some barnacles on whose larvae they will feed, although their main food is seaweed and other algae.

More often found on the western shores of the UK, this Flat Top Shell can be seen in our rock pools. The purple stripes fade if the shell dries out between tides.

These sea anemones can be found in the rock pools and clinging to any structures uncovered at low tide. Out of the water they withdraw their tentacles and close up, as two of these have. They can appear red, brown, green or orange.

The Sand Mason is a worm that burrows into the sand. It constructs a feeding tube, often covered in sand and shell fragments, which sticks out of the sand to provide a protective shelter.

This red seaweed can be found in many of our rockpools and is one of a number of seaweeds of the genus Polysiphonia that are difficult to distinguish. They don’t have common names.

This brown seaweed is often washed up on the beach. Unlike the similar Bladder Wrack it has no gas bladders, but the fronds tend to twist, hence its name.

This green seaweed is commonly seen attached to the rocks on our shore, forming great mats of slippery grass-like weed.