Report from DTNW Meeting 20th January 2026
Venue: Thomas Poole Library talk by Nigel Phillips on Marine Wildlife of the Somerset Coast, followed by walk along By-pass Wood in Nether Stowey to identify winter trees.
The weather was not inviting this morning being windy and wet but a talk and freshly ground coffee was very appealing. Seventeen of the group attended and Nigel Phillips spoke about the weird and wonderful marine life found along our local coasts both current and those from the fossil record.
Nigel has spent many hours exploring and photographing for his book (The Nature of Somerset's Coast”) and the photos were fantastic: many brightly coloured creatures including a series of shots taken of a squid as it changed its skin colour in response to threat. A fact I was not aware was that both squid and cuttle fish frequent Somerset's coast and come to spawn in some numbers, after which the females “gently” die. There were some lovely clear underwater shots of anemones filtering and feeding – one taking in a discarded crab shell another with jelly fish, I always thought they only ate small particles wafting past in the water. Also some super photos of Snakelocks anemone which is something like a gorgon's head! Many of these are found from the Western end of the coast between Minehead and Porlock.
Colonial organisms are fascinating with different organisms performing different functions (such as reproduction or digestion) making up one larger organism. There are many along our shores such as mat-like bryozones (Sea Mat) which live on seaweeds and Ascidian (Star Ascidian) on rocks.
After the talk and questions we spent time looking at shells and fossils and chatting further with Nigel. Then, having decided that the weather “was not too bad” a few of us walked down to the By-pass Wood and identified many different native shrubs and trees. We used a photographic guide which was very useful. Looking at trees at this time of year you really notice the buds – size, shape and colour, texture and colour of the bark and shape of the tree, branches and twigs. We discovered that on beech the very young twigs are hairy- try running your fingers along one- Wayfaring Tree has buds like “velvety fawn ears” and Spindles have square green stems. Male catkins of hazel were opening and we found their small female pink anemone-like flowers as well.
Trees/ shrubs identified:
- Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)
- Beech (Fagus sylvatica)
- Birch (Betula spp, Silver birch)
- Cherry (Prunus spp)
- Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea)
- Elm (Ulmus..) with its strange corky/ “crocodile back” bark on the twigs.
- Field Maple (Acer campestre)
- Goat Willow (Salix caprea)
- Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus)
- Hawthorn (Crategus monogyna)
- Hazel (Corylis avellana)
- Lime (Tilia spp)
- Oak (Quercus robur)
- Spindle (Eunoymus europaeus)
- Wayfaring Tree (Viburnum lantana)
- Whitbeam (Sorbus aria agg.)
- Walnut (Juglans regia)