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The West Dorset Magazine, May 6, 2022
Down to earth
BEACHCOMBING with JO BELASCO BA Hons History of Architecture and Design
It’s the perfect egg hunt for beachcombers. Over the Easter holidays The Fleet and Chesil Nature Reserve holds a Great Egg-case hunt where the information gathered is sent off for research purposes. “We are all marine biologists for the day,” exclaimed our lovely guide Marc. There were shark, skate and ray egg cases to search for between the pebbles. Marc amazed us by saying that sometimes there were visiting leather back turtles in the Fleet waters and even whales. As the sea was very calm that day we sat on the highest point of the Chesil bank and had a cetacean watch, basically looking out for the flap of a dolphin fin breaking the surface or gulls hovering over a certain area which would alert us to the possibility of whale or dolphin. We didn’t see any but it was a nice thing to do and there’s always next time. For years I had wanted to find enough egg cases to complete an ongoing project. To me the individual eggcases looked like chain mail but I never had found enough to realise my ambition to make a chain mail vest. With Marc’s guidance on
ON THE HUNT: The Great Eggcase Hunt at The Chesil Beach Centre. Above: Ray and shark eggcase chain mail vest and, below, making a necklace
Getting on the case in the big egg hunt
where to look I slowly collected what I calculated was a vest’s worth. Working with the brittle
Batman-like critters is fiddly but I was pleased with the final version. My mistake was to do the
photo shoot at a beach. One rogue sea breeze and the whole crinkly vest got entangled in the thread I had used to string it together. The model and I pretended we were less doing a fashion shoot and more in a Dr Who episode, possibly, Attack of the Sea Necklace. Disappointed by the result I tried again in the safety of a frame. The Wild Chesil centre don’t just hold organised egg hunts at Easter but all through the year. Granted at Easter you do get the bonus of an Easter egg if you find an egg case but they can be found all year round. To see this and what other events are hosted by The Fleet and Chesil Reserve go to dorsetwildlife trust.org.uk or pop in for a cuppa and a look around. Well behaved dogs are allowed on the hunt on a lead and there is even special doggie ice cream available. Paid parking and toilets are available at The Fine Foundation Centre Wild Chesil Reserve, Portland Beach Road, DT4 9XE or phone 01305 206191.
