Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales

21.01.13
Yesterday (Monday) was probably the warmest day so far. Not necessarily the day you would pick for a dusty 3 hour drive across the island but that’s how it was. I was very thankful that the car had working air con as you can’t open the windows while driving unless you want the interior to be caked in half an inch of dust when you arrive. The timings of the tides meant that I would be able to catch both an evening tide and then a morning tide too, getting 2 sites done in the area. Unfortunately the tides at the moment are not the biggest so there is less beach exposed and available for sampling. Still at least I would get something - or so I hoped - North Arm turned out to be a very poor site for polychaetes indeed.

Monday night I picked a small creek just before the settlement (Photo 1). Rocky around the edges, the sheltered aspect meant that much of it was made up of very soft muddy sediment, the kind your boot sinks into and then stays. However, I found I could move around so long as I didn’t stay still too long but despite several attempts I was finding very little in the soft mud. Eventually I started finding some lugworms but by the end of nearly 2 hours I had found little else even though I had tried several places around the creek. It certainly made for a less arduous evening’s work than usual anyway.

The next morning, I tried the shoreline at the other end of the settlement. This proved to be very rocky with extensive mussel beds (Photo 2). The areas outside of the mussel beds had very coarse loose sand that again seemed to harbour very little in the way of obvious animals. However, I collected what I could find and then washed and sieved some of the sediment through a 0.5 mm mesh sieve. This is our standard way of getting a more complete view of the life in the sediment as the smaller worms will ‘float off’ in the swirled sediment and then be held on the fine mesh of the sieve as the water is poured through. The residue on the mesh is then washed into a pot and kept to be later sorted through under a microscope when any tiny animals can then be picked out. I did this for the general sandy sediment and also for some samples of the mussel beds which I washed off in a bucket and then poured through the sieve also. Hopefully there will be many more animals in there that I hadn’t been able to see without a microscope.

The long drive back then beckoned followed by more washing of previous samples and transferring them from formaldehyde to ethanol. Tomorrow I will be able to pack more pots and get at least one if not two more parcels of specimens on the way back to the UK. Photo 3 shows where North Arm is in the Falkland Islands.

Teresa

20.01.13
The weather today has been absolutely glorious. I realize that most people reading this will probably hate me for saying that, due to the current weather in the UK but it’s true. Managed to get out for a local dive this morning, a little further up the coast near York Point, east of Cape Pembroke. The dive site was a small rock rising a couple of metres above the surface (photo 1). It was only very shallow but there was an amazing amount of life on the colourful reef, including, most importantly of course, worm life. The main downside of sampling underwater out here is the prevalence not just of kelp, but of giant kelp (photo 2). This stuff gets everywhere, in your face, round your legs and just generally in the way!

One of the reasons we had gone there was so that I could see and sample some Phragmatopoma reef (as mentioned in the previous blog) and although not large we did find some (photo 3). There were also many fan worms (photo 4), another large worm known as the parchment worm (Chaetopterus sp.) for its thick papery tube and a colony of other smaller, thinner-tubed worms (photo 5) in the same family but a different genus to Chaetopterus.

Sadly, that one dive was the only one we did but I have enough work to keep me going into the evening now looking through them.

Tomorrow, I am heading south to North Arm, the southern-most settlement and furthest south the road goes on East Falkland. The tide times are such that I will be able to make both the evening and the next morning tides in order to get plenty done before heading back to Stanley on Tuesday.

Photo 6 is a map of the Falkland Islands showing where I've been.

Teresa

19.01.13: I’ve just come back from 2 days out on Saunders Island, one of the larger outer islands in the north west of the area. The island is host to a mountain of wildlife and I was hoping to see lots of this while at the same time being able to continue my sampling on such a distant point. Although I was staying in the settlement on the east coast of the island, the owners gave me a lift to one of the more northern parts of the island known as The Neck (photo 1). This is a narrow stretch of land with sandy bays to the north and south so the idea was to try and sample both sides and be able to compare them. The low tide was not until the evening at 7.30pm and the owners generously agreed to come back and fetch me at 8pm so I would be able to do my sampling (it’s a 10 mile hike back to the settlement from there). The late tide also meant that I had time to do some walking of my own and visit the different penguin colonies in the area: Magellanic, Gentoo (photo 2), King and Rockhopper, all charming as ever particularly the curious gentoos who will come right up to you if you sit down and wait patiently. I was also surprised, and not a little dismayed, to find a large population of caracaras (photo 3) in the area, not my favourite bird as many will know. Any time you stop moving or put anything down, however briefly, a caracara will almost immediately turn up and start investigating, poking things with a very sharp talon to see if its worth flying off with.

Once the tide was about half way out on the north beach I set about poking around with my trowel. Nothing. Hmm. More holes, still nothing. This wasn’t good, the clean white/grey sand beaches the penguins are so fond of is obviously very bad for worms. I found nothing at all in the high shore region so tramped disconsolately down the beach before deciding to go and try the south beach. Nothing. Another hole, still nothing, the caracaras were shadowing me, either hoping or expecting me to give up and drop dead at any second. As I plodded along this beach my eye was suddenly caught by a discrepancy on the surface. Looking closer the little grey spots looked like small worm casts, so out came the trowel. Success! I was so happy, I wasn’t going to leave with nothing! There weren’t many but I did manage to collect a small variety of worms, always keeping a sharp eye on anything I put down and occasionally having to shoo-off the insistent thieving birdlife. As I moved further down the shore with the tide, the casts became slightly more common and I felt that at least I would have a representative collection for the area. Beaches are not always teeming with worms and this was obviously one of those. At the end I went back over to the north beach to see if I had missed those small signs of worm life. I still couldn’t see anything but had a dig down at low water and did find a sparse population of worms to collect. The worms in this habitat apparently only inhabit the mid-low shore and not high shore at all.

The next day, blessed with blue skies and warm sunshine, I planned a hike up the east coast towards a sandy bay one of the owners had told me about where he said he had seen evidence of worms before. I knew it wasn’t close and 2.5 hours later I made it. As low water had been early morning I knew I wouldn’t be able to sample properly but at least would be able to do a bit from midshore upwards. I stared in dismay at the billions of tiny worm holes (photo 4) on the surface of the soft sand. The only way to do this beach justice would be several hours and a large spade, neither of which I had. With the tide rapidly encroaching I did what I could before retreating. I realized there was not a single penguin to be seen on this beach. It would seem that penguins and worms do not mix, a good beach for one is a bad beach for the other. I continued my hike a short distance further so I could see one of the other main highlights of the island, the black-browed albatross colony (photo 5) that breed here, then I headed back.

I used the late tide that night to investigate the local harbour 5 minutes from the settlement, happily poking around the mud and rocky foreshore. Amazingly, there were many polychaetes (family Cirratulidae, photo 6) sitting right out on the surface of the mud all over the place. Under the flat rocks of the foreshore I found large white sipunculans (photo 7), relatives of the polychaete group and a species of polychaete that I don’t think I have had anywhere else, a definite highlight for the trip.

Saturday (today) saw me return to Stanley with my haul and I then spent the rest of the morning doing more formaldehyde washing-out from last weeks specimens and packing my first box ready to post back on Monday!

Photo 8 is a map of the Falkland Islands indicating where I was.

Teresa Darbyshire

16.01.13: There was no sampling planned today but instead I took an opportunity to look after the samples I took on the first 2 days out. My samples are always ‘fixed’ in formaldehyde to preserve the animals properly for later investigation but formaldehyde is acidic and it is not good to keep specimens in the fluid for too long. After at least 2 days being ‘fixed’, they are washed with freshwater to remove the formaldehyde as well as the salt from the seawater and then placed into 70% ethanol for better long term preservation. The last time I was here I left this job until the last few days of stay and then it took me a very long time to get through all of the samples. This time, particularly as I do not have much time between the end of sampling and my flight home, I am trying to be more efficient and do this job roughly every week which means it will be fairly quick each time and I can then also get the samples packaged up and sent off at intervals. This in turn avoids trundling multiple boxes down the post office and seeing the horror on the person’s face as they peer over the counter at the pile on the floor to be processed for recorded delivery!

The next job on the list was to start writing the public talk I will be giving next week at Government House here in Stanley. The talk is on the progress of the project looking at the polychaete life in the Falkland Islands and will give a summary of the results so far from the last trip, including details of three new species discovered, as well as the purpose of this trip and where I will be visiting while here. Hopefully anyone who comes along will agree that the work is well worth doing and producing important results.

Unfortunately, the diving expedition I was due to go on for the next few days has had to be cancelled due to others being unavailable although I am promised some diving at least on Sunday if not Saturday as well. Instead I have planned a last minute trip to one of the outer islands, Saunders Island. Like many others, this island is a nature reserve although the owners have given me permission to do some extra sampling there. This will be part leisure as well as getting extra sampling in (never travel without your trusty trowel, sieve and pots) and I am looking forward to seeing some penguins again. This will also be the farthest north I get to on this trip and as such an important addition to the route. Wifi does not exist that far out so no updates until the weekend (or after).

Hi Bulb Buddies!

I suspect many of our pots will be under snow for the next few days! This will mean that many schools will be closed. If you do get snow please put a note in the comments section when you send in your weather records. Follow this link to see the all the weather records that have been sent in so far. Select a school then ‘weather’.

Here are some pictures of my shoots. You will see that those I planted in autumn 2011 have grown much more than those I planted last autumn.

If you have shoots already, take a look at my pictures to help work out - which shoots are which.

Please send me any pictures of shoot sightings you may have.

Here is a video showing how your shoots will grow. 

Your comments my answers:

St Mary's CatholicPrimary School: We have no records for Monday because it was an inset day. Some of our daffodil bulbs have come through the soil. We have taken photographs and will send them by e-mail. Prof.P: I look forward to seeing them St.Mary’s.

Ladybank Primary School: Thank you for our new thermometer! Prof.P: No worries, thanks for letting me know it arrived safely.

Glyncollen Primary School: Our bulbs have started to grow over the holidays. We hope the frost doesn't get to them. Yr.4. Prof.P: Don’t worry year 4, they are quite tough.

SS Philip and James Primary School:
Happy New Year!  A few daffodil shoots are peeping out of the ground and in one or two pots. Quite a few shoots are emerging in the 'Mystery Bulbs' pot and they are a red/green colour compared to the daffodils shoots which are green. Prof.P: How exciting, not seen my mystery bulb shoots yet.

Greyfriars RC Primary School:
Some are sprouting already! All is good. I am really enjoying this project! Prof.P: glad to hear the bulbs are starting to grow and that you are enjoying.

St Joseph's Primary School (Penarth)
Happy New Year Prof.Plant. We have started to notice a few green shoots in some of our pots and are very excited about the plants beginning to grow. We have talked about the weather forecast for next week and think that we may be sending you photos of snow covered pots! (St. Joseph's Primary School, Penarth.) Prof.P: Yes you were right. Some snow in Cardiff but not enough!

Rhydypenau Primary School:
when we got back to school after the Christmas holidays, our rainfall gauge was full, so we must have had a lot of rain in a fortnight. Prof.P: Yes, we had lots of rain over the holidays – a bit too much! Many people had flooding which must have been awful at Christmas.

Henllys CIW Primary:
Some shoots but no flowers. Prof.P: The flowers will come soon.

Auchtertool Primary School:
When we came back from our Christmas break some of our bulbs were showing growth - not only the ones in pots but also some of those we had planted in the ground! Prof.P: Excellent news!

Ysgol Porth Y Felin:
hello p.p the plants are growing quite quickly but we didn't write down Monday because of teacher training. Prof.P: Thanks for letting me know.

Ysgol Nant Y Coed:
This week the bulbs have started to grow, mostly the mystery bulb. The weather was warm at the beginning and at the end it was cold. Prof.P: Great update, Nant Y Coed.

Tynewater Primary School:
We had 50mm of rainfall on Tuesday because we had been on holiday for two weeks and nobody had emptied the rain gauge. Prof.P: Yes, mine was the same. Thanks for noting the reason.

Due to a technical hitch the sampling at Whalebone Cove was postponed. Low tide was in fact 2 hours later than I thought as I had subtracted rather than added 1 hour for summertime, oops! Instead I got on the road to make the tide in the north (which I had worked out correctly). Three hours in the car brought me to Race Point Farm near Port San Carlos. This is in the northwest of East Falkland and had a very rocky shore with some large crevices in the rocks. These crevices could be split open with a spade and inside, hiding in the built up silt, were some very large worms indeed of the family Eunicidae (also known as ‘bobbit worms’ – google the phrase and you’ll find some footage of relatives of these worms hunting). The biggest of these measured around 20cm in length and as these worms have jaws I kept my fingers well away from the bitey end! The wind was whistling around the shore and despite being summer, my fingers were certainly cold. There was plenty to find though with colourful paddleworms being particularly common (photo 1). My bed for the night was a surprisingly cosy caravan at Elephant Beach Farm slightly further north. Despite how this sounds it really was comfortable, being fully equipped with power, hot shower and cooker and, even better, a freshly baked loaf of bread and some fresh eggs from the hens outside my door to keep me going.

Port Salvador was the next port of call and after calling in on the landowner, Nick Pitaluga, for a chat, he very kindly offered to drive me up to near Cape Bougainville right on the north tip of the coastline to sample there. This had originally been where I wanted to go but the road does not go that far and I had no desire (or permission) to take the hire car off road. The bone-rattling drive there, mostly on a visible track but the last part just generally cross-country toward the sea, confirmed that I would never have made it even halfway there without a guide. The exposed coastline was unsurprisingly rocky with long ledges of rock running out from the shore (photo 2). The tides are very low right now and the ledges were exposed right down into the kelp zone, where the enormous blades (nearly 1cm thick) of Lessonia kelp draped themselves over the rock and were so heavy they could barely be moved out of the way (photo 3). Underneath, in the cool damp crevices I found long tubes cemented to the rock. These turned out to be the home of large sabellariid worms (Phragmatopoma sp. photo 4), a relative of which lives in the UK and is known as the honeycomb worm for the tubes and occasionally reefs, it builds. Out here, this worm also sometimes creates reefs although here the tubes were individual. The worms inside are large, over 5 cm in length. I didn’t find any specimens of this family last time I was here so this was a very exciting find for me. Several scaleworms were also found sheltering in the crevices (photo 5).

On the drive back to the settlement I could see the sandy shores near it now exposed by the tide. These looked interesting so I decided to go back to the area the next day to do some digging there. This turned out to be a very rich beach and it was easy to see why there were so many wading birds around. The shore was literally covered with worm-holes and casts (photo 6) and I spent 3 hours working my around and down the shore with the tide. The weather by this time had changed from occasionally sunny (constantly windy) with a need for suncream even though I was feeling mildly hypothermic to mostly sunny with a feeling that I really might actually need the suncream (still windy).

On the drive back to Stanley that evening I felt that the first few days collecting had gone well. My main current concern is the fact that everyone I meet keeps trying to feed me either tea and cake or tea and biscuits (occasionally both). I have now given up on my post-Christmas attempt to wean myself off sugar.

On Wednesday I made it to Whalebone Cove having now worked the tides out properly. Amazingly the wind had dropped (not stopped obviously) which helped the tide go out as low as possible. This was important because I was after some particular lugworms that are only found at very low water. I found these last time and they appear to be different to the others higher up the shore. However, I didn’t find very many before so I needed to collect more to be sure that differences I see are not just natural variation but a definite consistent difference in body form. The wind and tide were kind and allowed me to get what I needed so then it was back to the lab to inspect my catch. Photo 7 shows a map with the locations of the sites mentioned above.

It hasn’t been the best start. It’s never a good sign when your plane stalls on the tarmac while taxiing to the runway and everything goes dark. As calls of ‘get the jump leads out’ echoed around the plane, the pilot turned the key again and off we flew, landing at Ascension Island 8 hours later. Sat in the middle row of seats I was unaware of the events outside the plane but as we stopped the pilot, with a slightly embarrassed tone, announced that we would be delayed getting off the plane. It quickly circulated, from those that had witnessed the event, that our wing was now jammed under that of the only other plane on the tarmac. Great. The next 12 hours were a long story that involved our plane being declared unserviceable (after being separated from the other plane) and then, surprisingly and not a little worryingly, it was suddenly serviceable again, we were herded back on and on we flew. The landing at Mount Pleasant airport was mildly bumpy in the gale force winds that greeted us at 1am, 10 hours later than originally due but at least we were there.

This time I am based at the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute (SAERI) in Stanley, a new organisation that was created in early 2012. Its objective is to be a world class academic institute, based in the Falkland Islands, operating in the South Atlantic from the equator down to the ice in Antarctica, conducting world class research, teaching students, and building capacity within and between the UK South Atlantic Overseas Territories (UK OTs). The institute’s remit includes the natural and physical sciences (see http://www.south-atlantic-research.org).

Today I am just sorting out my itinerary and equipment and visiting the different facilities I will be using while I’m here. Then from tomorrow I’ll be back out on the beaches chasing worms. The first stop will be Whalebone Cove, a bay just outside Stanley that I visited last time. The lugworms I collected from there turned out to be very interesting indeed with a potentially new species involved and I would like to see if I can investigate those a little more. Then it’s a drive to the northwest for an afternoon tide.

It’s extremely windy here at the moment, even more so than usual, so I am hoping that this drops a little. It is sunny and warm though which is a nice change from the wet and grey weather I left behind and much better for sampling in.

The map of the Falkland Islands shows the sites I visited last year - this year I will mainly be sampling on the West Falkland.

It's been a while since I last blogged from St Fagans - there's been a glitch in the matrix and we still haven't quite got to the bottom of it. But we'll get there.

That's one way of apologising that there won't be any pictures with this post. Anyway, onwards:

This week, Museum Wales and Cardiff University will be hosting the annual ExArc conference. ExArc, in this context, refers to Experimental Archaeology; a hands-on approach to learning about the past, which looks at the 'how?' of history, as well as the 'when?'.

ExArcers' work is in raw materials, painstaking detail and learning from mistakes as well as triumphs. The research they take part in can range from bronze-casting or iron-smelting using rudimentary tools; to recreating underwear or researching the practicalities of life in the past.

I have been lucky enough to learn a lot from ExArcers over the last few years, and so am very proud that St Fagans will feature in their visit down to Cardiff. We're known here for our hands-on approach, and I suspect we could learn an awful lot from these trailblazers!

While the conference is completely full, you can follow the discussion online using the hashtag #eauk2013.

The twitter stream is already full of interesting people, travelling here from all around as I type. If you're planning to attend, please do come and say hello. You will know me by my, erm, museum name badge?

Happy New Year Super Scientists! Hope you had a great break and are ready to get investigating!

At this time of year things start to get really exciting. Now is the time to watch your pots to see if anything is starting to grow. My daffodil shoots have already appeared! Anyone else got any yet? Please send me photographs if you do.

It could take another month or even six weeks until my flowers appear. It all depends on our weather - if it turns really cold then the growth will slow down. If it stays warm they will grow faster.

The next step... Please use my PowerPoint presentation to find out how to keep flower records. Remember each of you must let me know when your flowers open in order to receive your Super Scientist Certificates.

2012 was the second wettest year on record in the UK and the wettest ever in England, the Met Office announced.

The downpours that caused more than 8,000 homes and businesses to suffer flooding led to a total of 1,330.7mm of rain for the year, just 6.6mm short of the wettest UK year recorded in 2000 (1337.3mm).

Analysis by the Met Office suggests that the UK may be getting increasingly wetter as climate change causes warmer air to carry more water. Days of extreme rainfall – downpours expected once every 100 days – occurred every 70 days in 2012. For more info on this see this report from the Guardian.

Many Thanks

Prof.P

Today, 8 January, marks the 190th birthday of the intrepid explorer and brilliant naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Born in 1823 in the village of Llanbadoc near Usk, Wallace went on to be one of the most celebrated scientists of his era.

Wallace spent much of his early working years as a civil engineer in the south Wales area, particularly in the Vale of Neath. This involved spending a great deal of time working outdoors, which allowed him to indulge in his growing passion for natural history.

Soon, inspired by the writings of traveling naturalists such as Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin, Wallace set out on his own intrepid travels. These adventures started in the Amazon Basin and were followed later by his explorations of the Malay Archipelgo.

During these trips Wallace collected many thousands of birds, butterflies and beetles, many of which were new to science. The biological diversity he encountered inspired his thinking in many areas of biology such as the distribution and evolution of species. His brilliance did not go un-noticed and in 1858 he famously co-published the theory of evolution by natural selection with Charles Darwin.

During 2013 Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, along with other museums and institutions across the world, will be marking the centenary of the death of A R Wallace in a celebration of his life and legacy. Keep an eye on our web site and blog for further information as we finalise details and dates. You will also be able to follow other events and exhibitions on the Wallace100 website.