HI

Correction

Thank you to the kind reader who pointed out that in my April 2012 Entry "Backtracking" I inccorectly identified a yellow perch. The fish is actually a brown trout.

One door shuts, another opens. Technically, because of the misidentification- brown trourt could be added to my year list, now bumping the annual grand total up to 110-species.

 

Thank you again.

New Blog= 2013 Marine Biology

Hello Everyone,

Should anyone like, I have posted a new blog " 2013 Marine Biology"

Please visit.

Here is a photo from that blog.

                                                             One-armed hydromedusae

Final Entry

And at last, it is time to put this blog to rest.

At the onset of this blog, the idea was to chronicle my attempt to see 100-species of fish during the calendar year of 2012. 

I pulled it off. I was able to see 109-species. About half of these were new for me. It became a crash course on fish, particularly freshwater fish; my weakest vertebrate discipline.

This quest has led me from Rhode Island to Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. Additionally, I got offshore in Rhode Island waters six times.

There were many highlights: starting with the winter schooling white perch under the culvert on Green End Avenue; redfin pickerel in the backwaters of western Rhode Island; winter eagle trips on the Connecticut River; winter offshore trip with barndoor skate and spiny dogfish; Maine for smelt; Providence for a massive chain pickerel and the salmon and trout emerging from the fish ladder; Cuyuhoga River, Ohio; Pymatunig Reservoir, Pennsylvania for carp display; back to Central Maine to help census migrating river herring along the Sebasticook River; the big trip to Tennessee to snorkel with all the freshwater fish in the Great Smoky Mountains; opening the Third Beach Aquarium for a second summer  and collecting and exhibiting  24-species of fish plus teach all the kids; naked goby at Third Beach; Nantucket by ferry; and five more summer trips offshore including the outstanding collecting trip with the Norwalk Aquarium.  All are described below in this blog. Collectivly, there are 32-blog entries and over 150-photographs.

Of all of this , the ultimate high note were the three-week observations at Third Beach of the night major- possibly the first record north of Florida for this species. 

As of this writing, the blog has received over 1,700-pageviews from 30-countries. Of these, in addition to the 1,450+ from the States, I also had 72-from Russia. Additionally, countries include: Canada, Germany, England, Latvia, Romania, France, South Korea, Australia, Spain, Croatia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Mauritius, South Africa, Poland, Belgium, Finland, New Zealand, Ukraine, Sweden, Czech Republic, Venezuela, Thailand, Norway, Turkey, Bahrain, Indonesia, and the Bahamas.

That’s every continent except Antarctica.

And while certainly not viral. that certainly is global, I sure hope each reader who read this blog enjoyed every moment of it. Thank you again for looking and signing off (for now at least)- Charles

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Rare Bird Chase to Nantucket

Not really about fish, but just wanted to let everyone know I was still up and kicking.

Yesterday took the ferry to Nantucket from Hyannis to chase a pair of Northern lapwing birds that have been on the island since Hurricane Sandy.

Found them and returned. Thousands of scoters in Nantucket Sound.

Only fish seen at ferry docks were Atlantic silversides.  



Photo of Northern lapwing



1000th Page View

Incredible and thank you!

Surprise Offshore Trip

Ultimately, this remarkable trip happened because of a family, The H.’s from Darien Connecticut.

The H’s spend their summers in Newport, and they sent their boys to the Norman Bird Sanctuary summer camp, where they shined down at 3^rd Beach. Over the course of the summer, I lobbied the family to start up a salt-water tank, and they did.  At the end of the summer, I contacted the Norwalk Aquarium to see if they wanted some of our fish. They did too, and it was the H’s who delivered the fish to the aquarium. The aquarium was very grateful for the donation. Now the aquarium is our friend.

Jump forward to last Wednesday, when the aquarium’s Jack Schneider called me to see if I wanted to go offshore with them on a Sargassum seaweed collecting trip, I readily accepted.

Early the following morning, I met Jack and two fellow Norwalk aquarists in Galilee, to board the sport fishing boat “Snappa,” noted as the shark cage boat that I used to go out on many years ago. “Snappa “ is owned by Captain Charlie Donilon.

 

Snappa

 

From left: Jack, Joe, Kerry, Captain Charlie

 

I was so excited, because of the hundreds and hundreds of trips I have gone offshore, this was the first time I have gone on a dedicated marine specimen collecting trip. Plus there was no public that I had to narrate to, only three other marine biologists.

As we got underway, in addition to being a beautiful and sunny day, seas were calm. We steamed south directly for Cox’s Ledge at a fast clip- 16-knots. I’m not used to going that fast. The aquarium brought lots of collecting gear while I brought my extender net and a small dip net.

 

 

My net: ship's colors on the day

 

Soon we started seeing pelagic birds; red-necked phalaropes, greater shearwaters, Wilson’s storm-petrels, and an adult Northern gannet.

We found some floating Sargassum seaweed, and collected some. In it was a small gray triggerfish, smaller unidentified fry, and some of the specimens associated with the gulfweed community; gulfweed shrimp, portunis crabs, and gulfweed nudibranchs.

Gray triggerfish

 

We left the weed patches and although we got about 30-miles offshore, wespent the next few hours with little results. Eventually I recommended that we return to where we had had the Sargassum earlier, and here we found the mother lode, where we spent the next couple of hours gathering and collecting. In addition to more triggerfish, we also collected some orange filefish and a solitary planehead filefish. We also found a Frisbee with some goose barnacles on it.

Jack sorting through a tub of Sargassum

 

Orange filefish

 

Planehead filefish

 

Goose barnacles on frisbee

 

 

 

Then it was time to go in. One final treat.

 

In all, about thirty of these common dolphins surrounded us.

Great day. Thanks H's.

Captain Charlie and Joe in wheelhouse