No joy dipping one’s toe into barren rockpools

sir – Where have all the shrimps and crabs gone from our seaside rockpools?

I have rooted about in the same tidal pools in eastern England and western Scotland as a child in the Sixties, as a father in the Nineties and now as a retiree.

Lifting stones no longer seems to result in the scuttling away of crabs; and where dipping a toe in the water used to attract numerous shrimps, now I feel lucky if I spot the odd solitary specimen.

Are there still places in Britain where rockpooling is rewarding? David Naylor

Cornaigmore, Isle of Tiree

Hoping for something in the water: Shrimp Fishers at Saint Georges, by Rupert Bunny