17/08/2026
An excellent series of summer holiday rockpool safaris this past weekend over the spring low tides at Bembridge, Freshwater Bay and Compton! Despite the heat we were able to get out onto the shore and encounter some wild island marine life, with great groups of locals and visitors!
We had classic rocky shore finds across all 3 safaris, including everything from aggressive velvet swimming crabs, green shore crabs and rockpool prawns to green sea urchins, shannies and rock gobies. Young brown crabs also were found at all safari sites and we got hands on with IDing limpets, barnacles, chitons, sponges, hermit crabs and sea squirts.
Freshwater Bay also produced a great encounter with a large Tompot blenny, and at Bembridge and Compton we got good views of the nationally scarce Peacock’s tail seaweed, a warm-water algae at the very northern limit of its range here. Bembridge was also the site of a great record, a single native oyster (Ostrea edulis). Native oysters have declined enormously in the Solent in recent decades and the reef habitats they once formed are now essentially locally extinct, so any sighting of this once abundant oyster is great to see and a good discussion point.
With the hot summer, the most notable finds of the weekend however, were good numbers of the nudibranch sea slug the ‘warty Doris’ (Doris verrucosa) at Bembridge and Compton Bay. The warty Doris is usually found on the warm-temperate Atlantic coasts of France, Spain, Portugal and the Mediterranean, but in 2023 appeared on the Solent’s Hampshire coastline, and has since been expanding across the Isle of Wight, Dorset, Sussex and Hampshire.
The warty Doris is a climate change indicator, a clear sign of a warming and changing marine environment. This is a species not previously part of our island’s marine fauna that is now expanding and establishing with warming seas. With local sea temperatures of 21-22°C for much of the last few weeks, it’s little wonder the species is doing so well here.
Overall a great trio of rockpool sessions, with so much to teach and show our guests and important marine records to be made! A big thanks from Laura and myself to everyone who came along! Spaces are limited but available for our last summer safaris at the end of August, so to book on please visit www.theovickersmarinewildlife.co.uk or www.wightcoastfossils.co.uk!
