Port Phillip Baykeeper » Education

Summer by the Sea 2012 – your chance to connect with the coast

BayKeeper — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 11:14:22 +0000

For anyone looking for kids holiday activities and keen to connect with the coast on a low budget, Christmas comes in January… January 2nd to 22nd to be precise. During that 3 weeks an incredible range of fun learning opportunities are available through the Summer by the Sea program brought to you by Coastcare Victoria. You get to have fun and meet some amazing marine and coastal critters and the dedicated community members who can tell you all about them.

Sunrise seen from Altona (pic Julia Muniandy)

Baykeeper can’t wait to get out there for the fourth successive year of seashell safaris at selected beaches around the Bay. Who knows what we might find!!? We’ll also be conducting guided foreshore walks to check out the wilder side of St KIlda! Details of these activities can be found on the events page of this website.

If you get tired of all the action, why not just chill out and enjoy the sights of sun and water at play. As you can see from Julia’s sunrise pic (above) they do amazing things together!

The complete Summer by the Sea 2012 holiday program is available online at :- summer by the sea

Sand crab at Holloway Bend

BayKeeper — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:26:10 +0000

We’re so lucky to have such a beautiful Bay with all its fascinating critters. Better still we’ve got someone to turn to if we don’t know a critter’s name. The Melbourne Museum Discovery Centre has an excellent free service in species identification. All you need to do is email a good picture of your mystery species, noting where and when it was found and what it was doing.

Baykeeper recently found a large crab on the beach at Holloway Bend, but was unable to find any orange-coloured crabs in the Baykeeper library. The good people from the Museum have advised it’s a sand or surf crab Ovalipes australiensis.

What critter is that?

Their two flattened back legs enable them to swim, and probably serve as shovels to help the crab dig backwards into the sand when threatened. Perhaps the two large dots are pretend eyes to fool a would-be predator into thinking they’re being stared down… just long enough for the crab to escape.

Many thanks to the Museum staff for cheerfully sharing their invaluable knowledge!

Cart-rut shell found at Middle Brighton

BayKeeper — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:33:36 +0000

Year 9 students of Shelford Girls’ College conducted shoreline shell and litter surveys at Middle Brighton today. Shells found were typical of the species gathered by Boon Wurrung (traditional owners) from shore platforms along the east coast of the Bay. They included abalone, turbos, and several species of limpets. But the most notable find was a large cart-rut shell (Thais orbita).

rare find at Brighton

This species is known to be affected by Tributyltin (TBT), the active chemical in some boat hull anti-fouling paints. Use of anti-fouling paints containing TBT were banned in Victoria in 1989 for use on recreational boats, but still permitted on commercial ships. Baykeeper shoreline surveys conducted around the Bay over the past 4 years have found only a handful of these shells. Thais orbita is a predator of other molluscs known to inhabit rocky shores to 10m deep.