On 10 September Selsey Bill was announced the best beach in the UK for
beachcombing:
http://blog.cottages4you.co.uk/beachcombing/beachcombing-results-revealed/An interesting accolade for our most southerly point.
I did wonder how many people had been beachcombing there in order to provide
a reasonable comparative sample. Selsey Bill does not seem to be a very
obvious destination for visitors, but maybe it has a reputation in the
beachcombing world. Could it be that interesting items are swept round the
point and get stuck in the offshore Bracklesham Beds? Or maybe bits of Old
Selsey get washed up from time to time. Apparently a large number of gold
coins of Commius, Tincommius, Verica, Epillus, and
Cunobelin dating to the Iron Age were found on the beach in 1877 along with
a collection of scrap gold, so perhaps this is the draw.
I was actually at Selsey Bill on Saturday (see
http://ramblingsofanaturalist.blogspot.com) though unaware of the recent
award, but saw no beachcombers and, indeed, hardly any people. I have
though, already had an anonymous Selsey supporter claim that my rant about
the place was unfair. Maybe he or she is a beachcomber.
My own fieldwork on the beach produced a few lesser dung flies,
Thoracochaeta zosterae, under rotting seaweed which I thought might be the
most southerly terrestrial insect records in Sussex.
Patrick Roper
