Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
A micro-hike around the arboretum and conifer plantations at Newmillerdam this morning. I got a surprise when I saw a tiny invertebrate trundling by as I focussed on algae on a tree trunk. I couldn’t see it at all with the naked eye but it no doubt ran for cover from the glaring light of the eight LEDs of my mobile microscope.
I spotted this mobile microscope in a sale at the RSPB Shop at Fairburn Ings and decided to give it a try.
This sea mat colony on a crab shell was photographed at the lowest magnification, which ranges from 20-200x. With the unaided eye, I can see it only as a stipple. There’s part of a barnacle shell in the bottom left corner.
Hornwrack is another colonial animal, which looks like dried up seaweed when you find it on the strandline. This 20x view shows the individual cells that the bryozoan filter-feeding occupants lived in.
