Hello! In June, I went on the Practical Ecology field course on the Isle of Cumbrae, which runs at the end of the module. If you’re wondering what we get up to while we’re there, or you’re considering this module for yourself, here’s my experience of the week, and all the hands-on ecology skills you get to try out.
Planning the Project
Before you even get to Millport, you plan the study you’re going to carry out. This can be anything to do with rocky or sandy shore organisms. For my group specifically, we focused on periwinkle snails and algae. Your project can be fully lab-based, fully field-based, or (like my team’s) a mixture of both! This was a brilliant opportunity to use the knowledge from the module and put it to the test through practicing experimental design, and thinking creatively and independently from staff about what you want to investigate. Whatever you decide for your investigation, you’ll still get both lab and field experience from all the other planned activities.
A Very Wet Welcome
The next morning was all about species identification in the lab from our Kames Bay samples. Using classification keys and microscopy, we worked through our specimens and counted how many of each organism we’d collected. Being able to use these methods is a very important skill in ecology to ensure accurate species identification- even though we have incredible current technology- Google can still be wrong! In the afternoon, we analysed our data in groups and created figures for a short presentation the following day. This presentation was a helpful chance to get some feedback on our graphs before collecting our “real” data that would be used in the final module assessment.
Getting Stuck Into Lab Work
The next morning was all about species identification in the lab from our Kames Bay samples. Using classification keys and microscopy, we worked through our specimens and counted how many of each organism we’d collected. Being able to use these methods is a very important skill in ecology to ensure accurate species identification- even though we have incredible current technology- Google can still be wrong! In the afternoon, we analysed our data in groups and created figures for a short presentation the following day. This presentation was a helpful chance to get some feedback on our graphs before collecting our “real” data that would be used in the final module assessment.
Exploring White Bay
The same day, after dinner, we cycled to White Bay (the rocky shore). This evening was definitely one of my favourite parts of the whole trip. The cycle was gorgeous (and dry!), we spotted seals on the way, and then spent the evening collecting as many different seaweed species and ocean critters as possible. What more do you need?
Competition Time!
Day three started with a species identification competition, further strengthening our identification abilities, where whichever pair collected the most different species from White Bay won. My partner and I collected 20 species and came second by one point! This was also the day with the most free time, so my friend and I cycled/hiked up to the trig point and got an awesome view of the island!
Boat trip, Bat detecting, and Starting Our Assessment Projects
The next day was amazing as we all went on boat trips, where we collected sea creatures and plankton. This was just a super cool chance to see the massive range of marine biodiversity we have here in the UK- including lobsters, starfish, crabs, urchins, and more. We also got a chance to look at the plankton and comb jellies we had collected under microscopes to see the structure of the jellies and try to identify the different zooplanktons. After this was when most of us began our assessment projects. For my team, this meant heading to the rocky bay near the FSC at low tide to collect data and gather periwinkle snails for our lab work (no snails were harmed!). We finished the evening with a bat‑detection walk, using detectors tuned to different frequencies to hear and spot different bats!
Project Work, Flexibility and Final Night Fun
The last two days were mostly project work and data analysis- lots more periwinkles and algae for us. And for our final night, many of us headed to the Tavern (the greatest pub in Millport) for karaoke before travelling back to York the next day.
Final Thoughts
One thing I really appreciated about this course was how flexible it is. If your initial idea doesn’t work in the field, or you realise you want to change direction, the academic staff help you reshape your project into something realistic and interesting. Overall, I had an amazing time on this trip. I feel I gained a tonne of new, useful ecology skills, while also getting to know more people on my course, and would highly recommend it for anyone considering taking the module!
Thanks for reading 🙂
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