Eek, a diving bird!

20150724 012 Diving bird for blog

Close escape today! I was on the ‘balcony’ (all right then, the rock ledge) outside my home, nosing around when whoosh down came a diving bird, a shag. It almost caught me in its sharp beak! I flicked speedily into the back of my crevice and stayed hidden there as the shag continued to swim around my rock, prodding its beak into many of the cracks and crevices looking for food. I saw an unfortunate corkwing wrasse (a type of fish) being crunched. I am now a bit nervous about coming out again. It’s a good thing I spotted this predator so quickly. Having my eyes set so high on my head is a brilliant adaptation that helps me see well in all directions.

Tompot blenny territory

Blenny cliff, wide-angle & wrasse 1

I haven’t had a chance to show you round where I live yet. My very desirable crevice home is in this rocky reef. At low tide the top of my reef is in water about 2 metres deep. Tompot blennies like me have been spotted around most of Great Britain and Ireland; see the map in my blog of 4th June 2015.

Divers and snorkellers can only come and visit me when the sea is very calm and clear like it is in this photograph. When the sea is rough and stirred up, it gets very murky so the divers would get washed around and not be able to see anything or take photos. There’s more information about my home at www.bennytheblenny.com

No more floor space

Tompot blenny RL 1208 140

Belinda has been back twice more. The last time she visited, she had to turn upside down to lay her eggs on my ceiling as we’ve run out of space on the floor. Of course I had to turn upside down to fertilise them too! It’s quite easy for us to roll over like this. We use our pelvic (hip) and pectoral (shoulder) fins to grip the rock and keep us in position in the narrow crevice. That’s Belinda on the right, she’s cute isn’t she?

My local beach

 

The rocky reef that I live on is close to here. It’s just beyond the low tide mark but is always covered in water. Lots of tompot blennies live further offshore than this and in deeper water, sometimes down to 30 metres.