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The last few weeks I have been lucky enough to have some spare time, and have used it wisely! I have spent it combing every inch of my favourite spot on the northern shoreline of the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, Uk. Hunting conditions have not been too good recently. With a rather un seasonal amount of rain falling recently and some unfavourable tides the fossil beds have been largely covered by mud and shingle. But nevertheless I have spent hours looking through the uncovered patches sometimes on hands a knees, looking for mainly crabs and shark teeth. I will post some of my finds below....

After a long day hunting on the Isle of Sheppey I made it home with a few interesting little finds. Some small bird bones and possibly a cuttlefish beak. Can anyone confirm if it is please. Pictures to follow!

Yesterday I spent a lovely spring morning walking along the Sheppey coast to a place known as Eastchurch gap. I have known of this place for many years and never made the couple mile hike along the beach from Minster before. Normally I would stay much closer to the Minster end of the cliffs but as the weather was fine and the tide was in my favour I decided to take a punt on searching new grounds. After a fairly fruitless trek I finally rounded an outcrop of the London clay and recognised the landscape and features I had only seen in pictures of the famous Eastchurch gap. Within seconds of entering the gap I spotted my first find... an almost 1 foot long partial nautilus sticking out of the clay and half covered by shingle. After digging it out from the clay I was saddened to see that the centre had crumbled into a sticky mush of shell and clay. My hopes were raised again only moments later when I spied my second nautilus shell! Almost unbelievable I thought someone was playing an April fool on me! Again though my joy was slightly deminished upon finding the centre missing. After searching for almost an hour more and finding almost.nothing else I started to think about heading back as I was getting rather hot in the lunchtime sun and had run out of drinking water so made a decision to check one last clay slump and caught a glimpse of that familiar shine laying on its side before me... a THIRD nautilus! This time though it was almost a whole specimen, with the centre intact! With the fatigue of the long walk through clay, mud and shingle and a backpack well weighted by nautili specimens I headed back towards home feeling rather happy with my days hunting and planning to return with the hope of finding a variety of specimens on my next adventure! I will upload pictures as soon as I am able to. :-) happy hunting!

Today I found myself hurrying along to my favourite hunting grounds on the Isle of Sheppey the tide was already well on it's way in and I knew I would only have a short window before I would get cut off by the tide. This did not however stop me from using almost all of that window getting covered in mud. With only a couple of worn sharks teeth and not much else in my pocket pickings were looking rather slim. As I started my brisk walk back I came upon an old Shoe that had been washed up on the beach. The shoe was pointing in the direction of the incoming tide and the clay standing in its path. Taking this as a signal I chose to follow it's direction out to the waters edge and almost immediately came across a rather nice crab nodule as attached. I have so far spent around an hour prepping it and it is turning out to be fairly complete! It is also by some margin the biggest crab I have found so far :-) All in all not bad for a rushed hunt! :-)

Wouldnt it be great if all the nodules ive found over the last year were to prep themselves! Its gonna take me years plus a few new tools I think to get through this lot!! But on the plus side, who knows what treasures I mightifind inside them! :-D

I think this skull from Minster cliffs on the Isle of Sheppey is from an Eocoelopoma Curvatum but would love some confirmation if possible. Any more details required please ask :-) Many thanks for any assistance. Gary