Calling all swimmers, divers and snorkellers!

30th Jun 2022 Kate Allan

We are looking for records of rare and important marine life. In Shetland we are very fortunate to have a long and varied coastline, home to a wide variety of marine life. Compared to other parts of the UK, the Shetland coastline is relatively well studied thanks to survey work undertaken to support the building of Sullom Voe, work UHI Shetland to map important marine habitats and continued government agency survey work. But there are still large amounts of coastline yet to be surveyed.

All the species in the guide have been included as they are either rare, provide a vital habitat for other marine species or provide an important function such as storing carbon, stabilising sediments or maintaining water quality.

To be able to monitor and record these species we need to have accurate and up-to-date information on their distribution around Shetland. This information is used by the marine spatial planning team at UHI Shetland to create maps which are then used by developers, policy makers and local decision makers.

That’s where we need your help, we are asking wild swimmers, divers and snorkellers to report sightings of these key species. If you think you may have spotted one of the species in this guide please send us thew following information:

WHAT species you found
HOW many or how large
WHEN you found it
WHERE you found it (including coordinates if you have them) and at what depth.
Any PHOTOGRAPHS you may have

To download your copy CLICK HERE

We would also welcome records of any unusual species or invasive species (Shetland’s Marine Non-native Species), or shark and skate eggcases you might spot when diving (Shetland Shark and Skate Eggcase Hunt).

Shetland Porpoise Survey

15th Jul 2021 Kate Allan

Harbour Porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) are the smallest of the cetaceans to be spotted around Shetland. They are generally shy creatures and do not often approach boats but can be easily spotted from the shore. They are regularly spotted in Shetland waters in small groups and sometimes in large aggregations that are not seen in many other areas in the UK.

Despite them being commonly spotted we have limited records and do not fully understand seasonal variations in the areas they congregate and for what purpose. To fill this knowledge gap we are undertaking porpoise surveys in areas porpoise are commonly seen.

In collaboration with Whale and Dolphin Conservation we have created two new Shorewatch sites, one overlooking Quendale Bay and one at South Nesting Bay. We will also be surveying from the already established Shorewatch site at Mousa Sound. The survey involves undertaking a watch and recording the presence of marine mammals. If porpoise are present further information can be collected on number of individuals and their behaviour. This data will be used by the NatureScot and the Shetland UHI to update the Regional Marine Plan and will assist in protecting areas that are important to these wonderful creatures.

To gather as much information as possible we need your help! Are you interested in marine mammals and have time to undertake a short watch from one of our survey sites? All equipment needed is in survey kits which are available at the survey sites in lockboxes 24hrs a day so watches can be done at your leisure. Don’t worry if you have limited experience as full training on marine mammal ID from experts Whale and Dolphin Conservation is provided! A great way to start your marine mammal spotting journey.

We are also looking for experienced drone pilots who would be willing to come out and drone over our survey areas when we know porpoise are present. This will allow us to gain more accurate counts of individuals, see any calves present and observe behaviours such as mating. If you would like to help, please get in touch.

Contact us at shetlandcommunitywildlife@outlook.com for more information or head to the Shorewatch website for more information on the Shorewatch project.

Invasive American Lobster- Retain and Report

27th Oct 2020 Kate Allan

Marine Scotland recently launched a campaign to help raise awareness of American lobster (Homarus americanus) which are now being found in Scotland. The animals are considered an ‘invasive non-native species’ as they are not naturally found in Scotland and pose a threat to our native wildlife.

These animals cannot cross the Atlantic naturally and therefore have appeared because people have released them, either deliberately or accidentally. Marine Scotland are calling on people to report any American lobsters caught in our waters to gain a true picture of where the animals are, in what quantities and if they are breeding.

Identification

American lobsters are similar to European lobsters in appearance but there are some noticeable differences:

American lobsters are more stocky in appearance than European lobsters
Colouration varies but American lobsters are usually green/brown with orange, red, dark green or black speckling, while – European lobsters are blue in colour
The underside of the claws of an American lobster are orange, while those of a European lobster are cream coloured
American lobsters have one or more spines (ventral teeth) on the underside of the ‘nose’ (rostrum), a feature which is absent in European lobsters
The spines on the rostrum of the American lobster tend to have red tips, while those on the European lobster are white tipped

Why we need your help

It is thought that American lobsters could have a negative impact on native European lobsters and other species in the marine environment, by acting as a disease vector, competing for food and shelter and potentially interbreeding. Currently we do not have enough evidence to state with certainty how much of a threat this is, so it is important that any suspected American lobsters are reported so they can be verified by Marine Scotland.

Reporting

Please report any suspected American lobsters to your local Marine Scotland Compliance Fishery Office or the UK Fisheries Monitoring Centre at 0131 271 9700 or via email at UKFMC@gov.scot.

Have you spotted a Crofter’s Wig?

20th Jul 2020 Kate Allan

Crofter’s Wig (Ascophyllum nodosum ecad makii) is a very rare and interesting little seaweed. It is a form of egg wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum)but is free-living (not attached to anything). It is thought to have first originated from broken fragments of the normal form of egg wrack but in very sheltered conditions grows unattached. It gets it’s name, Crofter’s Wig, from the wig-shaped masses it forms. It prefers the mid-upper tidal zone in very sheltered areas such as the head of some voes where it is not at risk of being washed away by stormy weather.

Austin Taylor/ Copyright Shetland Islands Council

To submit any potential sightings of this species, send your name, location (with a grid reference if possible) and a photograph if you have one, to us via email to shetlandcommunitywildlife@outlook.com or fill in the contact form here.

It is a Priority Marine Feature (PMF) and a UK Biodiversity Action Plan species (UKBAP). It provides an important habitat for other seashore species such as crabs and molluscs.

So far in Shetland it has only been recorded on the west side of Shetland and is considered globally rare. The Shetland records might represent the northern most extent of this species.

Delve into the World of Hoverflies….

15th Jul 2020 Kate Allan

…with this new ID guide by Rebecca Nason

A local naturalist and wildlife photographer, Rebecca has a passion for hoverflies and has recently created a leaflet to help people identify and record these garden visitors…..

“We are only just beginning to scratch the surface of species, populations and distribution of hoverflies on Shetland, with only a few naturalists delving into their identification and recording them. With understanding of Shetland hoverflies still in its infancy, there is still much to learn and add to the current database of knowledge. These are exciting times for the Shetland naturalist; with so much to still explore and understand, anyone can really make a difference to biological recording in the Islands.”

Download Shetland’s Hoverflies- A Photographic Identification Guide here.

Plain-faced Dronefly. Copyright Rebecca Nason

We welcome your Shetland hoverfly records or photographs for identification. Please use the Shetland Insect Group on Facebook Page, or contact Paul Harvey at Shetland Biological Records Centre (paul.harvey@shetlandamenity.org). Please don’t forget to add a location (grid reference if possible) and a date to your discoveries.

Become a Skatespotter

29th Jun 2020 Kate Allan

As restrictions on water sports continue to be eased, we would like to share the Skatespotter Project, led by NatureScot. Common or Flapper Skate (Dipturus intermedius) are considered critically endangered. By using unique body markers individuals can be identified from photographs, allowing us to gain new insights into these fascinating fish. Jane Dodd leads the project for NatureScot and has shared with us how the project was set up and the results from Shetland so far.

In 2016 Steven Benjamins, a researcher at the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) received around 400 digital photos of Flapper Skate taken between 2011 and 2016 from Ronnie Campbell a skate charter skipper operating out of Oban. Steven was able to identify around 250 individual skate with several recaptures by recognising the spot patterns on their backs (Benjamins et al 2018). These 250 skate became the foundation for Skatespotter, an online database of flapper skate photos submitted by charter skippers and anglers. Anglers upload their photos to the website and they are checked against the existing catalogue of photos by staff and volunteers at NatureScot and SAMS. New recaptures are added and if the skate can’t be matched to the catalogue it is added as a new fish. The majority of the data so far is from the Argyll area where both sexes appear to spend most of their time in a small home range, females even more so because they are recaptured more often. We have 2 females who have been captured 17 times, Di000031 was captured 17 times between 2014 and 2020 and Di000369 was captured 17 times between 2016 and 2019.

In January 2020, Skatespotter was updated to include skate captured in the Portpatrick area and in the Outer Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland. So far 39 skate have been submitted from Shetland since 2019 and there have been no recaptures but we remain hopeful that as the number of photos in the catalogue grows and time goes by we will edge closer to a recapture. We have noticed that so far Shetland skate are a bit more spotty than Argyll skate. Most Shetland skate have very symmetrical patterns of spots or whorls on the wings made up of small spots on a background of very small spots whereas Argyll skate usually have a simple symmetrical pattern of large spots on a plain background. On a couple of Shetland skate the spots have spread creating a complex pattern of lines and squiggles.

If you are keen to get involved please have a look at our Skate Handling Best Practice Guide before heading out to fish. In addition to the photo, you will be asked to provide the general location where the skate was caught, the date and time it was caught, its gender and size. The best photos for identification are taken from above and include the whole skate including the base of the tail, further advice on taking good photos of skate for photo ID is available in our Guidance. You can upload your photos to Skatespotter here. We are also interested in receiving reports of skate strandings. The vertebrae and measurements from stranded animals will help with work aiming to more accurately age skate and determine at what age they start to breed.

Shetland’s Marine Non-native Species

26th Jun 2020 Kate Allan

Can you help spot marine non-native species in your local area?

For a number years, Shetland UHI has been looking for and keeping records of marine non-native species arriving in Shetland. Non-native species are those which come from elsewhere in the world and have become established here, usually transported on hulls of boats or ballast water. In the past, species were also transported with shellfish aquaculture when novel species were brought into and trialled across Europe (back in the 1960-1980s). Shetland UHI has been monitoring ports and marinas, as this is usually where species enter first.

Download our INNS Guide here…

We have found that, compared to elsewhere in the UK, Shetland has relatively few non-native species, perhaps reflecting Shetland’s cooler waters, making it harder for some species to colonise. However some INNS have been found in Orkney and Norway and can compete with native wildlife and smother aquaculture structures which have caused economic impacts elsewhere in the UK. It is therefore important that we monitor hotspots such as piers and marinas to record and findings of INNS and implement an eradication strategy.

We have created a INNS and Indicator Species Guide to help communities identify INNS in their local area and by reporting them quickly, are helping to keep the numbers of INNS in Shetland low. Very few non-native species make it into the ‘wild’, they prefer man made structures so piers, marinas and the underside of buoys are a good place to start your search.

Two species we would be particularly interested in records of are the Orange-tipped Sea Squirt (Corella eumyota) and Wireweed (Sargassum muticum), both originally from Japan.

Lisa Humphray recently spotted the non-native Orange-Tipped Sea Squirt in Scalloway harbour while turning over rocks on the beach. This is only the second time it has been found in the ‘wild’ in Shetland and indicates it may be spreading beyond marinas and harbours. We’d be really interested to hear if anybody else finds it, as it would help us to understand how fast it is spreading around Shetland. It loves living right at the bottom of the shore and under rocks. At marinas it may be found on the underside of floats and buoys.

The second species we’d like you to look out for is Wireweed. It has been spotted twice in Orkney but hasn’t yet managed to become established. It can drift long distances in the current, so could easily make it to Shetland too. In Orkney it was found in the ‘wild’ rather than at a marina. Once established it can grow rapidly, clogging boat propellers and smothering our native animals.

Paul Brazier (CCW) © Crown Copyright 2009

We also don’t know if either the Orange-tipped Sea Squirt or Wireweed can survive Shetland’s wet ,windy and cold winters, so year round and year-to-year data is really important to understand how a species is establishing and spreading, particularly as the climate changes.

For more information have a look on Shetland UHIs webpage on non-native species here.

Shetland Butterfly Spot

15th Jun 2020 Kate Allan

Now that we are fully into spring and the sun is shining, the butterflies have started to appear back in our gardens and wild areas. There are just five species of butterfly commonly seen in Shetland.

The Large White (Pieris brassicae) is our only resident butterfly and has a bit of a bad rep with the veg growers due to its caterpillar’s choice of lunch! The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) and Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae) butterflies are all migrant species, the Red Admiral and Painted Lady are regular visitors to flowers in our gardens, with the Small Tortoiseshell being rarer.

Over recent years there has been an increase in the number of sightings of the Peacock (Aglais io) butterfly, another migrant species which is now recorded in Shetland every summer potentially due to the effects of climate change.

There are however 15 species detailed in the Shetland Butterfly ID Leaflet although many of them are very rare, you may just be lucky enough to spot one!

As all but one of the butterflies seen in Shetland are migrants, they can appear each year in very variable numbers, so we need your help to gather accurate records of the butterflies in our islands, both resident and visitors.

Butterfly ID
Leaflet
Click here!

Butterfly
Survey Sheet
Click here!

You can send your completed survey data straight to SBRC by email to paul.harvey@shetlandamenity.org.

If you have any questions you can get in touch with the Shetland Community Wildlife Group via our Contact Us page.

Sightings records can be emailed to SBRC with photos if you have them (this is important for evidencing the rarer species). If you have more time, we would love it if you could carry out a short survey in your garden or on a set walking route once a week, or as often as you are able.

Simply download our Butterfly ID Leaflet and Survey Sheet and get spotting!

New Zealand Flatworm Survey 2020

10th Jun 2020 Kate Allan

We are teaming up with the fantastic and very experience Orkney Field Club (OFC) for this project. It is one that everyone across Shetland can get involved in in their own garden/allotment. We would like you to tell us about sightings of the invasive NZ Flatworm (and indeed earthworms) to find out more about their current distribution and abundance in Shetland.

The NZ Flatworm is an invasive, non-native species that is spreading rapidly across the UK with serious consequences on our native earthworm populations which are predated by the NZ Flatworm. They arrived in Scotland in the mid-60s and have been in Shetland now for a number of years but we do not currently know the extent of their distribution or in what numbers and that is why we need your help. We would like as many records from all over Shetland including the outer islands to see how far they have spread. Negative records are also very important as this indicates areas that may not yet be populated.

Recording Form

Survey Questions

If you are not familiar with the NZ Flatworm, here is a description taken from the 2013 OFC bulletin by B. Boag and R. Neilson of the James Hutton Institute, Dundee:

“New Zealand flatworms are usually found during the day, often curled up like a Swiss roll, under pieces of wood, stone or polythene lying on bare earth. They are relatively flat compared with earthworms, are pointed at both ends and covered with a sticky mucus. They can vary in colour but usually have a dark brown upper surface with a lighter beige speckled border which extends to cover the ventral surface. Flatworms can also vary greatly in shape from long and narrow (up to 15 cm) to short and relatively fat. They produce egg capsules which look like small, shiny blackcurrants.”

The NZ Flatworm and its eggs may be found under stones, plastic and wood etc. We would also like you to record the numbers of earthworms you are finding in your ground as their lack of abundance may be an indicator of the presence or absence of the NZ Flatworms.

We would like you to complete the Recording Form and answer some Short Questions and email them back to us at shetlandcommunitywildlife@outlook.com. Feel free to add any other information that you feel may be of interest.

We will be sharing data with the OFC to get a full picture of the distribution and abundance around the whole of the Northern Isles region. We will also share your records with the Shetland Biological Records Centre.

Some useful information on earthworm species can be found on the OPAL website www.opalexplorenature.org/earthwormguide and there is some useful information on NZ Flatworms on the RHS website www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=975.

Happy hunting!

Big Seaweed Search

3rd Jun 2020 Kate Allan

Whilst you are enjoying a stroll along the beach or rock pooling with the kids, why not take a few minutes to look a bit closer at the seaweed. The first thing you may notice is the array of different colours: reds, browns and greens and the many varied shapes.

The British Isles are perfect for seaweeds, they just love it here with over 650 species known to grow along UK coasts and shallow seas.

MCS and the Natural History Museum launched the Big Seaweed Search to encourage folk to observe and record seaweed species in their area. They would like you to download their leaflet which details the 14 species to look out for and then submit your records using the recording form or upload the data straight onto their website.

Currently, very little is known about the abundance and distribution of many of our seaweed species.

Click here to get involved in the Big Seaweed Search

The Big Seaweed Search was set up as a partnership project between the Natural History Museum and Marine Conservation Society.

Also, due to environmental issues such as:

ocean acidification (the sea becoming more acidic as a result of absorbing carbon dioxide from the air);
rising sea temperatures; and
the arrival and spread of non-native species

the seaweeds we are seeing around our coasts are changing so people’s records are more important than ever.

Shetland Community Wildlife Group

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