Quarry Beach etc

It was rather hot on 3 October.  At home it was 34C but around noon the BoM gauge at the airport was well behind, which I attributed to a sea breeze.

I shall return to this at the end of the post.

The parking area at Quarry Beach was pretty much full when we arrived, but we were able to fit in (and more punters did while we were away).

It was low tide when we got there (1530) but not really low (0.3 m rather than 0.16 m).  However there was a lot of sand - particularly rocks - exposed.

This gave us a good chance to identify a few barnacles (having just acquired a book on them).  These are we think Chthamalus antennatus, the Six-plated Barnacle.

The crucial bits in identifying barnacles (of this nature) appear to be the number of plates and the overlapping bits of the front plate (the rostrum) and the back plate (carina).  The key bits is how these pates relate to the next door plates at the areas marked in red: where these plates overlap (as in this case)  itis called an ala but if the adjacent plates are on top it is a radius.

Further down the beach a different looking set of barnacles appeared.  They were smaller and densely crowded with (I think) only 4 plates Chameaesipha tasmanica (Honeycomb barnacle).

Observers in iNaturalist have identified this as Little Blue Periwinkle Austrolittorina unifasciata for which I thank them.

These are - thus far - only identified to family Mytilidae  (True Mussels).  There are 8 species identified in the ALA so I shall see if I can get closer using that.  Brachidontes rostratus (Beaked Mussel) looks like a good prospect.

A small crab.

A live -  but somewhat used looking Triton (Cabestana spengleri ?) and a sea anemone.

Another Triton - possibly the same species - with some hitchiking barnacles - from the size and crowdedness I'd take a guess at Cabestan splengleri.

Coming back along the beach a Cowry was found.  This was a matter of excitement for us as they are NOT common: there are only 3 Cowry records for this area in the ALA.  This one is Notocypraea angustata (Brown Cowry).  The image was taken at home, on a paper towel: the shell was well empty!

Some sand art - this has got a few likes on FB  and (thus far) no comments about appropriation.

As we drove home I noticed the pigeon on the left (adult) was perched on top of the immature (on the left).  This counts as a breeding record.

A second adult appeared and was promptly chased off by the randy one.  Doves aren't always a symbol of peace and goodwill!

When we left the beach the car thermometer read 32C - a remarkable increase on the value at noon.  So I updated my chart.  

It did appear that the wind had shifted a little and some meteorologists on a weather group have explained what happened as 

• "The air mass was always hot down to a couple of 100m of the ocean so all it takes is a slight swirl of wind bringing down the warm air that was always there just above you." and 
• "This is the large-scale geographic influence at work and demonstrates the interconnectedness of things, or at least some components of the Gaia hypothesis, at work. Snowmi has analysed the likely specific cause of what happened, but in more general terms it only took that slight shift in wind direction from off the colder Strait to off the warmer land to rapidly change the temperature at the AWS, which is only about 250m from the shoreline.