Northern kingfish
Friday, September 21, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
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 3rd
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.
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| Snappa |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Jack sorting through a tub of Sargassum |
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| Orange filefish |
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| Planehead filefish |
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| Goose barnacles on frisbee |
Great day. Thanks H's.
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| Captain Charlie and Joe in wheelhouse |
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Tough Day for Hickory Shad
The tall ship is the "Sloop Providence.' My friends are crew on it. This vessel is a replica of the original ship of the same name.
It has a remarkable history During the time of the RevolutionaryWar it was at one tim, the only ship in the US Navy. Taking on the Brisits Navy, it sank or captured 40-British Ships. As John Paul Jones first command, this gutsy ship also captured Nassau, Bahams twice, and from her booty,supplied George Washington's army with clothes. The list goes on. Currently this vessel is Rhode Island's state flagship, and was used in "Piates of the Caribbean."
So this was the view topside.
Meanwhile, at my feet in the water, a dense cloud of hickory shad was under assault.
A squadron of bluefish would attack this ball of shad and emerge from the fray, each with a fish in its mouth. It was grizly thinking that this was the shad's lot- to spend their day waiting to be picked off the the mauraders.
Here are more images of the shad.
Then this floudering fish floated by
It was trapped in a cellophane cigarette wrapper.
I freed it, took its photo, and set it free. It was a menhaden.
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