These three were swimming together, the two goatfish probing for prey and the saddle wrasse hanging about to snaffle up tasty tidbits stirred up by the two other fish.
Blue goatfish and a saddle wrasse
Category Archives: In The Water
Commerson’s frogfish
This little lemon-yellow beauty is a juvenile Commerson’s frogfish. Frogfish are rarely seen by snorkelers because they blend in so beautifully. Typically they look like bits of the reef but some, such as this one, mimic sponges and so are more easily seen.
Frogfish are anglers. They sit motionless on the bottom. When potential prey approaches, they flick their first dorsal fin forward. This is tipped with a fleshy lure that hangs over its mouth. If the prey takes the bait, the frogfish strikes. It can expand its mouth to swallow quite large fish and it strikes with such speed that other fish in the vicinity are generally unaware what’s happened, thus allowing the frogfish to remain in place and continue fishing.
In this photo, the frogfish’s eyes and mouth are visible, as are its pectoral fins that are adapted to help it hang on to the reef and to move about.
This frogfish was spotted by my wife and we watched it for a while before we were interrupted by three whales breaching. They were half-a-mile or more away, but this was the first time I’d seen whale activity from the water and it was pretty impressive, if almost impossible to photograph.
When the whales settled down, I dipped my head below the water to try and locate the frogfish again and the first thing I saw was a white-tipped reef shark cruising by. I suspect it had been attracted by my feeble attempts to dive and photograph the frogfish, probably thinking there was some easy prey to be had. It quickly disappeared again, but it made for a memorable few minutes.
Abstracts: Coral patch on sand
A lone patch of coral stands out on the sandy ocean floor. Such areas tend to have less fish, presumably because they are more exposed. On the plus side, anything that is swimming in such areas is easier to spot.
Yellow gray chub
This fish is a gray chub, so why is it yellow? That’s a question with no good answer. Locals used to think that yellow-colored chubs were ‘queens’ of their schools, but there’s no evidence to support that. Instead, it’s regarded as simply a color variation, seen in a few fish, that is without significance. This is the first one of these I’ve seen.
Gray chubs’ usual coloration can be seen in the photo below.
A green turtle says hello
During a recent snorkeling trip, I happened to turn around and saw this turtle heading toward me. Usually they will head off in a different direction when they see something as strange as me, but this one came up quite close before sliding off to the side and gliding away again.
As you can see, there’s nothing green in the appearance of green turtles. The name comes from the color of their fat, found between their organs and carapace.
Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Green.’ See more offerings here.
Humpback whale tail slaps
This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Climate Change.’ (See more responses here.) Living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean makes climate change a relevant topic. Our weather is affected, our wildlife is impacted, our food supplies could be disrupted. But I’ve chosen to picture something obvious and current – humpback whales.
I posted (here) about the decline in the number of humpbacks coming to Hawaii to breed and calve, an estimated drop of 50- to 80-percent over the last four years. I expect that decline to extend to this year’s numbers.
I’ve lived here for seven whale seasons and the drop in numbers from the first couple of years to now is visible and obvious. January through March are supposed to be the height of whale season, but the number of whales here is dropping. I spend a lot of time in the island’s prime whale viewing area and already they are few and far between.
Each year, NOAA conducts a whale count on the last Saturday of January, February, and March. Last year, at the count site I attended, we saw no whales in March – none. This was unprecedented. I wouldn’t be surprised if this month’s count repeats that result and I certainly don’t expect them to see more than two or three whales.
A conference in Honolulu last fall attributed the drop in the number of whales visiting Hawaii to warmer waters in Alaska affecting the whales’ food supply. Those waters are warming because of climate change. So what will happen? Well, my belief is that people make money off activities that cause climate change and the best/only way to change that is to make those activities less profitable or to make it more profitable to be engaged in activities that combat climate change. An alternative is to have people become less geared to making obscene amounts of money, but that, I think, is wishful thinking indeed.
In these photos, a humpback whale slaps its tail, one of several common humpback activities that are monitored during the NOAA whale counts.
A mackerel scad school draws attention
Mackerel scad are schooling fish, the kind that make ‘bait balls’ which end up being decimated by large predators. They’re members of the jack family, not that this does them much good. Some of those large predators are other members of the jack family such as greater amberjacks and almaco jacks.
I came across this school not far from shore. There were probably two or three hundred fish in the school and it was fun watching them twirl and circle in harmony. They encircled me, went past and I popped out the other side. It was then I noticed they weren’t alone. One the other side of the school, a medium-sized great barracuda cruised around.
The barracuda came toward me to take a look, but I was clearly less interesting than the scad and it moved away again. The barracuda can be seen in the bottom photo. See if you can spot it.
Squaretail filefish
Squaretail filefish are easily identified by the white patch at the base of the tail and the orange fins.
Graham's Island 