Perranporth Marine Conservation Group

05/06/2026

Which kind of beach do you prefer …. ?
🌎♻️Happy World Environment Day - this is the post we didn’t want to have to make 😢

🗑️The scale of littering on Perranporth beach at peak times and when we have a good spell of sunshine is hard to comprehend and equally hard to tackle 😢

🔥Everything from remnants of fires and parties in the dunes to full beach tents, chairs and parasols left 🏖️

🪏Body boards used once and discarded and plastic beach toys left on the tide line.

👟Shoes, clothes and towels left behind, crisp and sweet wrappers, beer and soft drink cans.

❌Perhaps the worst of all - broken glass bottles. Imagine your child or dog encountering the end of an smashed glass bottle that’s been purposely buried in the sand rather than picked up and taken to a bin less than a few hundred meters away…

A desperate plea - if you think our beach is beautiful please, please keep it beautiful🙏

25/05/2026

#10 Blue jellyfish.

🔎👀We’ve reached number 10 of our strandline sweep and still no sign of running out of fascinating strandline finds – they just seem to keep washing in at Perranporth! This week we are focusing on blue jellyfish.

🌊🌊These beautiful jellies have been washing up on our strandline in quite big numbers this week. They are encouraged inshore by blooms of plankton that occur in the warmer weather with increased sunlight.

It’s a typical looking jellyfish with a dome-shaped bell and stinging tentacles trailing underneath. The bell colour depends on maturity and can vary from pale yellow to purple. Paler (younger) ones are easily confused with the larger lion's mane jellyfish. 🦁🦁

The blue jellyfish captures its prey with its dense array of stinging tentacles, and these can give a painful, burning sting if you are unfortunate enough to brush against them when in the sea. They can still sting even when they are dead - so be careful touching them!

Thank you Cornwall Wildlife Trust for the information.

17/05/2026

What a morning! 🩵🎨🖌️⏳🏝️🪼🦀🐚

A HUGE thank you to everyone that came down to enjoy our extra special beach event double whammy this morning.

First of all we had a great turnout for the beach clean - thank you to everyone that came and helped us clean the dunes and beach. We managed to clear 4kg for recycling and 18kg of rubbish.

Then we had a very special sand art workshop with Charlotte Cortazzi!! Charlotte and helpers created a wonderful sand art picture and then everyone added their own marine themed sand art. We all got creative and had a wonderful time!

Special thanks to Jamie of Perrans Above who very kindly gave up his Sunday to come and film the sand art with the drone!

We think you’ll agree - it looks wonderful! 🩵🦞🪼 thank you so much to everyone who came and got involved!

More photos to follow!

17/05/2026

By one of our own! Lizzi Larbalestier is delivering a talk at the Truro Waterstones this Tuesday 19th.

16/05/2026

Tomorrow. Free event, no booking needed. Just turn up, with perhaps a raincoat as there could be some rain. All welcome, children under 18 to be accompanied by an adult please.

10/05/2026

We will be supporting this fantastic event. Come and say hello and maybe take away and / or swap a free plant!

08/05/2026

01/05/2026

#9 Sand Hoppers - this weeks strandline creatures are Sand hoppers.

Sand hoppers are a type of crustacean 🦀.They are pretty small and spend the daytime buried in the sand at depths of 10-30cm or hidden in strandline debris. They emerge mostly at night to feed on decaying seaweed and other detritus

Adults spend the winter in a dormant state 😴buried in the damp sand at depths of up to 50 cm above the spring tide mark.

They are an important food source for shore birds just like the Sandpipers in the video 🪶

Sand hoppers are sometimes referred to as sand fleas. This refers only to their jumping abilities - don't confuse them with the bitey sand fly, sand hoppers don't bite people!!

If you turn over rocks or seaweed you will often see them jumping out of the way. Sand hoppers are greyish-cream in colour with one antenna noticeably thicker than the other.

Sand hoppers are well known for their amazing jumping abilities - they do this by tucking their tail under their body and quickly flicking it out, hurtling them high into the air!

thanks to for the info!

24/04/2026

#8 Goose barnacles. Our latest strandline sweep is in the ‘weird and wonderful’ category - it’s a large shipping rope with a colony of Goose barnacles attached.

Goose barnacles are often found clinging to floating debris that wash ashore after storms and are an indication that their floating host has been out in the ocean 🌊for some time.

🦞🦀At first barnacles were thought to be molluscs, but they are now known to be a type of crustacean and are actually related to crabs and lobsters!

Goose barnacles filter feed on plankton and detritus, capturing it from the water with their specially adapted legs.

In medieval times, observers deciding that goose barnacle shells resembled the body of a goose and the stem, a goose neck, crazily came to the conclusion that barnacle geese hatched from them!

🚢⚓They are a high-value delicacy in parts of Europe. Historically, vessels arriving in Cornwall with them on the hull were seen as a financial boon. The goose barnacles would be scraped from the hull and sold for food!

Please share any photos of goose barnacles attached to interesting marine litter.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust