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It’s 6.30am and I’m wading knee-deep in the River Solent, searching for common eelgrass (Zostera marina) seed. I meander through the shallows, scanning the underwater meadow for something no bigger than my little finger.

I’ve been shown photos of the seed-bearing spathes, but at first the sheer expanse of leaves is overwhelming. I try combing my fingers through them, feeling for the fleshy flowering spikes, but come up empty-handed.

A seasoned volunteer advises me to look for something resembling the offshoots of a spider plant, more rigid than the leaf blades and a subtly different shade of green, yellowing as they mature. Almost immediately, I begin to spot them, the pod-like sheaths swollen with seeds. Visible through the membrane, they resemble plump grains of arborio rice. Interestingly, in some indigenous cultures, Zostera seeds are known as sea rice and considered a staple food.

Sea grasses are unique because they are the only group of flowering plants that live and complete their entire life cycle, including pollination, entirely submerged in seawater. Once widespread in the Solent, Zostera beds have shrunk significantly over the last century owing to disease, pollution, dredging and repetitive damage from boat anchoring and mooring.

Because the United Kingdom has lost up to 90% of this rare marine habitat, the restoration work being done here is of national importance. Each seed we collect is a tiny contribution towards the expansion of these vital carbon sinks, fish nurseries and natural buffers against coastal erosion.

The meadow teems with life. As I cross a sandy clearing – the marine equivalent of a woodland glade – translucent prawns flick away with each careful step, and a spider crab scuttles across my foot. Shoals of translucent, greenish sand smelt shimmer past, while larger, silvery juvenile sea bass dart around my ankles before vanishing into the wafting sward. Gelatinous sea slug eggs, shaped like pieces of orecchiette pasta, cling to the leaves, and when I gently part a clump, a tiny cuttlefish erupts from the fronds in a puff of surprise.

I’m not lucky enough to encounter one of the short-snouted seahorses that also inhabit these beds, but knowing they are here, sheltering among the dense vegetation, is thrill enough.

• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com