This is a little riddle I’ve been working on for my latest school groups to add to their educational boat trip activities this month. I’m gradually starting to get back into the school trips with Stanley. I’m not quite sure what he thinks to his mad mummy wearing a snorkel to represent a cormorant and pretending to eat worms to represent a curlew and so on. He just stares at me fascinated and giggles every now and again in between trying to helm Lady Grace for me.
My population has decline these past 25 years.
Dating back to Roman times,
That’s when I met my first lemons and limes.
Calcium from the water I use to create my home.
An exoskeleton protects my soft insides, formed around me like a dome.
My food is in the top one meter of water,
It’s the microscopic plankton that I seek and slaughter.
Relocated to these tidal creeks
This is where my growing peaks.
I am a type of mollusc
Harvested from dawn to dusk.
Under the sea
That’s where you’ll find me!
At the bottom is where I live
The seabed I constantly sieve.
I am a filter feeder
They call me the pollutant weeder!
Filtering three litres of water in one hour,
My shell opens and shuts like a flower.
I have a magic trick,
It’s pretty slick;
Made by my own fair hand,
Creating sea treasures from a single grain of sand.
So precious, a beautiful pearl
The must have to be worn by every girl.
Marked by wobbling withy sticks
At low water the fishermen have their picks.
I encourage a vast biodiversity of life.
But starfish I fear they create untold strife.
Their stomachs they expel
And come into my shell
Their arms prise me open and eat me from inside
Having had their fill, along the seabed off they glide.
If that’s not enough to contend;
I fear my species will never mend,
For I am also predated by the tingle shell
Off foreign ships these nasty drillers fell.
Not to mention being overfished
Served in restaurants we are dished.
The debate; to be swallowed whole or chewed.
Now a delicacy, once a poor man’s food.
Enjoyed and afforded only by the rich,
We are just enough to quench their seafood itch.
Packed up in a black shed
God only knows how many mouths we have fed.
London is where we were bound on ships
Served on a plate, but not with chips!
As well as being the market leader
I’m quite a breeder!
1.5million eggs each year
But only 10 make adulthood I fear.
My eggs need a substrate to latch
This is where they eventually hatch.
Using the safety of rocks and the odd shell
Without this, their future I do not dwell.
If you’re not careful, my extinction is nigh
Can you guess, what creature am I?
This is a little riddle I’ve been working on for my latest school groups to add to their educational boat trip activities this month. I’m gradually starting to get back into the school trips with Stanley. I’m not quite sure what he thinks to his mad mummy wearing a snorkel to represent a cormorant and pretending to eat worms to represent a curlew and so on. He just stares at me fascinated and giggles every now and again in between trying to helm Lady Grace for me.
