I am very happy to reveal that I have now finally had success with obtaining some decent specimens. Over the past three days myself and various assistants have used a variety of methods (seine nets, fishing rods, hands) on three different islands (St Mary's, St Agnes and Bryher) and have collected at least 16 different species of fish. It's hard to say for for sure exactly how many until I can get back to the Museum and look at some of them under a microscope.

Most of them are on the list of fishes I made before I left but there are a few which will be new records for our collection from this locality. It's been a great pleasure to meet naturalist and local legend Rosemary Parslow, who collected most of our Scillonian fish specimens back in the 1970s and compare notes and get some advice about where to get certain species.

On Friday, despite grim weather conditions, we headed down to Porth Hellick on the southern side of St Mary's. At this point all I had to show was one baby sandeel so my joy was unconfined when our first drag of the seine net through a large rock pool produced tens of little bodies flopping about.  Most of these were sand gobies - some of the fattest I've ever seen - but there were also some juvenile flatfish.

Fat sand gobies (Pomatoschistus minutus)

A few more drags produced some other species of goby and a very dark looking shanny.

Shanny (Lipophrys pholis)

The best find of the day for me was a worm pipefish which I found underneath a rock. These are not very fast swimmers but are hard to spot as they look just like a bit of seaweed. A closer look at the specimen revealed something interesting, a cluster of orange eggs stuck to the belly of the fish indicating that this was a male specimen.

Pipefishes are in the same family as seahorses (syngnathidae), and like them, the male takes care of the eggs after they have been laid by the female.  I felt a bit guilty taking this specimen but I had never seen one like this before. I should point out that all the fish I collect are anaesthetised using clove oil before preservation so the process is as painless as possible (this also makes for nicer looking specimens).

Male worm pipefish (Nerophis lumbriciformis) with eggs

The following day the weather had improved vastly and we boarded a boat for St Agnes, the island to the south of St Mary's. Rosemary had recommended a particular bay called Porth Killier so we headed there full of optimism. Upon looking at it my heart fell slightly as the whole area was thickly blanketed in various kinds of seaweed - lots of places for fish to escape and tricky to use the seine. Nevertheless, Tom and I carefully ventured forth and after about half an hour of rummaging about in the kelp I found my first ever clingfish!

Porth Killier, St Agnes

Sadly this escaped a bit later due to an incident with the bucket and I did my best to be philosophical about this. We got some more pipefish and some rock gobies so all was not lost but then Tom developed some kind of clingfish sixth sense and within half an hour or so we had seven specimens of two different species (shore clingfish and small-headed clingfish).

Shore clingfish (Lepadogaster lepadogaster)

Two rock gobies (Gobius paganellus) and a small-headed clingfish (Apletodon dentatus)

If there's one thing I have really got out of this trip it's a greater appreciation of other people's specialities. Suddenly I find myself looking at flies and plants and shellfish in a whole new way (one of the other nice results from our trip to St Agnes were the discoveries of blue-rayed limpets and spotted cowries in the kelp). But in particular crabs.

Previously I thought there were shore crabs (the browny-green ones) and edible crabs (the pinky-purple ones) and that was probably about it, but my crab universe has now expanded exponentially. On St Agnes I found what I think were five or six different species, some of which were relatively benign when disturbed, some of which were furious. Every rock we turned over also revealed a wealth of fascinating creatures, and at times I almost forgot about fish.

A strange crab

Returning home triumphant we decided to round off the day with a spot of fishing at Penninis Head. This was initially extremely successful and I caught a nice big ballan wrasse on a fishing rod that telescopes into something the size of a pen and Tom got a fine pollock. Although both of these are edible (although opinions vary about the wrasse) the national collection trumps our stomachs and they were placed in the freezer when we got back. I have never before seen the attractive blue inner lips of the ballan wrasse, another first for our trip.

Ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta)

The blue inner lips of the ballan wrasse

I'm afraid I have now run out of time and I think the limpet risotto is just about ready. More soon and I will leave you with this, one of the black rabbits - descended from escaped pets - that live just outside our bunker.

Black rabbit of St Mary's

We have settled in to island life on the Isles of Scilly. Our digs for the next two weeks are an old bunker in the south western corner of St Mary’s with a wonderful view across to St Agnes. It is quiet and beautiful and we are surround by the spectacular atlantic ocean.

The view out onto the Atlantic Ocean

Our trip is part of a project led by Mark Spencer, Senior Curator of the British and Irish Herbarium at the Natural History Museum. The Isles of Scilly are a unique and stunning environment and they contain common and rare and (in some cases) invasive species - Mark’s work here aims to enrich the Museum's collection of British and European plants and animals with recent material.

This will fill gaps in our collections and make sure they cover a continuous span of time right up to the present day. Often, we don’t know how a collection will be used in future and they can play a key role in research. By keeping a collection like the one at the Museum, we have access to the information locked inside the specimens which could be used to answer questions on environmental change and other, similarly huge issues in the future.

The rest of the science team are arriving later in the week so, as an introduction to the island (and to find something to eat), Mark led us on a foraging tour of St Mary’s.

Mark Spencer looking for plants on St. Mary's to cook for supper

We found a whole host of amazing (and delicious) species, more than enough for supper. It should be said that we found a lot more edible species that we didn’t collect. It is important to understand a plant's role in the ecosystem and environment and some plants were too rare, or delicate to collect. Mark has an excellent knowledge of the local flora and it is important to really understand an area before harvesting anything from the wild as well as having permission for anything you want to collect.

I think it is safe to say if you’re in doubt, leave it in the ground. Not only does this protect the environment but also saves any potential poisoning (so don't try this at home unless you know what you are doing!). We passed lots of species that are absolutely deadly including whole fields of hemlock water dropwort, which is exceptionally poisonous.

The exceptionally poisonous hemlock water dropwort (Oenanthe crocata) - not part of our supper later in the day!

Having said that, when in the company of an expert like Mark, the natural world explodes with interest and intrigue. Every plant has story and history and a whole world of edible possibilities is opened up.

The basis of our supper, all harvested from the wild.

Later in the day we cooked up our foraged plants - finding things that are good, or interesting, to eat is always great fun and the meal at the end of the day was blooming delicious.