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

                                                                ><}})>   ><}})>