Another response to the last edition of the WordPress photo challenge with a theme of ‘All time favorites.’
I never get tired of watching turtles and I like photographing them in the water, which can produce all kinds of effects. This photo looks like it’s had some kind of filter applied, but it hasn’t.
Another response to the last edition of the WordPress photo challenge with a theme of ‘All time favorites.’
There’s no doubt that moving to Hawaii has allowed me to gain an appreciation for creatures that live underwater. Where I lived before, in Washington State, getting in the water involved a huge amount of courage, which was rewarded by hypothermia and death 15 minutes later. I still consider it something of a minor miracle that I can jump in the water here, swim around for an hour, and emerge alive!
Photographing those underwater creatures is always something of a challenge. My camera is, essentially, a little point-and-shoot and I have no special lighting. The water is often murky and it’s always moving, I’m moving, the fish are moving. So I’m happy when I get a decent shot.
I spotted this devil scorpionfish when I was following a different fish and saw this unusual-looking ‘rock.’ It’s typical scorpionfish behavior. They have such good camouflage, that they can sit on the bottom in the open and not be noticed. After a few moments, the scorpionfish moved off and, as it did so, flashed the colorful undersides of its pectoral fins. This ‘flash’ serves as a warning to would-be predators that an encounter is not likely to end well for the attacker as the scorpionfish has venomous spines.
As for the other photo, I have it on good authority that his mother loves him.
This colorful little creature is a sea slug. As with many other nudibranchs, the bright coloring serves as a warning. They’re poisonous and, because of this, have no known predators. One tidbit I found interesting is that nudibranchs like this Varicose phyllidia, don’t produce their own poisons. Instead, they ingest toxins from their prey, such as sponges, and recycle it. So not just yellow and black and pale blue, but green as well.
I’m always amazed and entertained by the ability of eels to disappear into a seemingly solid lump of coral or rock and then, a few moments later, emerge from some unexpected location. I mean, how do they know they’re going to find a way out? There must not be too many claustrophobic eels in the world.
This whitemouth moray eel illustrates the concept in a small patch of dead coral.
Posted in response to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge ‘Twisted.’
A photo of some colored lava rocks. But wait. Why are there tiny fish among those rocks? No, they’re not skittering about on minuscule legs, a living proof of evolutionary theory. Instead, they’re swimming in very shallow, very clear water near the edge of a freshwater-fed pool, just inland from Akahu Kaimu Bay, south of Waikoloa Resort.
On my last hike along that stretch of coast, I stopped here for a refreshing dip. The entry to the pool was over these somewhat rough lava rocks. While I was feeling my way across them, these little fish seemed greatly interested in my feet, which suggests life in the pool must be very dull indeed.
Posted in response to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge ‘Liquid.’
Something fishy indeed. Little fish milling around in one of the Golden Pools of Keawaiki, and looking for all the world as though they’re in a painting..
A couple of weeks ago I ran a post about my first shark encounter for about two years. Then, like buses, another one came along within three weeks.
The latest was another whitetip reef shark, which are the sharks most commonly seen around here. I was swimming in shallow water, when the shark popped into view over the edge of a drop off to deeper water. It was quite close and moving fairly quickly, so I snapped this photo as it zipped by, before disappearing on the other side of me.
The photo isn’t the greatest, but I post it for two reasons. The first is that it shows the black spots on the side of the shark. These are a way of identifying individuals because the spot patterns are unique to each whitetip reef shark.
The second reason is that I usually have my camera zoomed in (it’s not a high-powered zoom) so that I’m more likely to get a quick shot of a small fish before it disappears. This photo is zoomed in, but when I first saw the shark, my immediate thought was, ‘I’m going to have to zoom out for this.’ In the photo, the shark is probably around 10 feet away. Compared to the shark in my previous post, the details of this one, such as the gills, are much more pronounced though this shark was smaller, probably about 3-feet long.
Whitetip reef sharks are not considered much of a threat to humans, though they are curious and, as this one did, will come close to take a look. When people do get bitten by whitetips, it’s usually spear fishers towing their haul, or someone provoking the shark, possibly entrants in the worldwide ‘My Dumb Selfie’ competition that so many people seem so keen to enter.
Cauliflower coral was once a mainstay of reefs along the west coast of the Big Island, but has been in decline for a while. Then, in late 2015, high water temperatures caused a huge coral bleaching event, which resulted in a die-off of more than 90% of the area’s cauliflower coral. In some places, nothing was left. Because of this, the reproduction of surviving corals has become of increased importance.
Different corals have different methods of reproduction. Cauliflower coral reproduces in a synchronized spawning event. During this event, the corals release gametes (eggs and sperm) into the water, creating a milky cloud. For many corals, the spawning event takes place at night, but research indicates that cauliflower corals spawn shortly after sunrise, two or three days after the May full moon. At least, that’s what I was told.
Consequently, twice last week, I got up at an early hour in order to be in the water before 7 a.m. in the hope of witnessing a cauliflower coral spawning. Yes, that’s the kind of life-on-the-edge that I lead.
The first priority was to find some live cauliflower coral, easier said than done. There were a few patches in deeper water, but since visibility was not great, it would be almost impossible to tell if and when they spawned. After some finning around, I found a shallow spot with three small clumps and decided to pin my hopes on them. The live coral was part of a larger mass, part of which had died, as can be seen in the photos. Also to be seen in the photos are an arc-eye hawkfish (above), and two four-spot butterflyfish (second photo) among others. Corals are very important to fish stocks because many small fish, and the young of bigger fish, use the coral for protection, a place to hide when threatened.
What’s not to be seen in the photos is any evidence of spawning, because I didn’t see any. It was unlikely that I would. Conditions might not have been right for the coral or my timing could have been off. The May full moon is actually on the 29th so it might be that the spawning will be at the end of the month, not the beginning. I’ll try again then.
Posted in response to this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge ‘Unlikely.’
Graham's Island 