2nd Dec 1988 - Pointe de Guin de Cou

Further south, the Pointe de Guin de Cou is sup­posed to be good for divers in the right weather conditions but in the calm of today there are only herring gulls. One has a starfish which is appro­priated by a another bird. He washes it and stabs it a few times, flies about with it and then repeats the process. Eventually he swal­lows it whole and is left with strange lumps on his neck. Another bird defends its starfish for a while but then drops it. It is caught by a rival who loses it to another a few seconds later. The starfish has now lost an arm or two and is swallowed easily before the next attack.

The tide is well out, exposing some flat, algae‑covered rocks where the gulls had been feed­ing. Along the edge of these rocks we find a number of orange and red starfish, five to eight centimetres across, that have been stranded by the tide. The gulls could have easy pickings but they seem to prefer food that has been caught by some­one else. Also stranded is a small skate about fifteen centimetres across the wings, a chunk has been taken out of one wing but it is otherwise intact. There are plenty of bivalve shells, especially small mussels attached in clumps to sea weed, razor-shells and some small pale shells that have a trap-door neatly cut out of one shell by a predator trying to get at the flesh. A few small echinoderms and jellyfish complete the list. The fossil imprint of a nautilus type mollusc, about twelve centimetres across, shows clearly in one rock.