Klein's and Regal at the Pier

   You may have noticed that the blog has been on a bit of a short holiday.  Well, the hiatus wasn't exactly a walk on the beach.  Somehow or other your doughty correspondent ended up with a a sore back.  This was sufficiently severe to keep me out of the water for more than a week.

The Kailua Pinktail Trigger

    During this time I worked on a small school of paper mache fish ornaments for the Christmas tree.  My finished product is better than it was two years ago, but I doubt that my fish are ready to be sold down on Alii Drive.   Perhaps if some generous vendor gave me a corner of a booth at the pre-Christmas stroll, I could pass the work off as being done by school children and donate the proceeds to one of the local educational institutions.  But then what would we put on our
tree?  Rhetoric aside, I'm including here my holiday masterpiece for this year, an anatomically questionable pink tail triggerfish with the Kailua malecon rendered on her flank.

    A few days ago I finally got back in the water.  Sandra was kind enough to drop Bob and I off at the pier.  She went grocery shopping at the KTA while we went for a swim on the Ironman side.  Going out, we didn't see much.  While I was dawdling a short distance

Day Octopus  Photo Bob Hillis

  away, Bob got a look at an octopus about twelve feet down.  The handsome fellow obliged him with this excellent picture. Of course, he was long gone by the time I made it out to the fourth swim buoy.  As octopi are somewhat territorial,  I'm going to give that area a good look for the next few weeks.

     One word about the photo.  Most photographers who expound on underwater photography emphasize that processing your pictures is a significant part of the art.  My processor, a version of Ulead dating back about ten years, despises the photographs that I receive from Bob's Olynpus.  This is surprising, as his camera and the one I currently use are closely related.  Unable to fiddle with the picture on the computer, I downloaded it on my Samsung 4

The Blacklip Butterflyfish,  C. kleinii, December 2015

phone.  There is a cracker jack app called photo (what a surprise) that allows processing.  It gives you the option of a variety of balances and permits a change in contrast, which it refers to as pop.  Having used that trendy photo processor to get the picture I wanted, I then emailed it to the computer and, voila!, Here you are.  The new picture is still pretty much rejected by the aging Ulead and I'm left wondering, after all the travel through the email and the phone, "How do it know?"


    But I digress.  

    Just as I reached the exit, I was treated to a most excellent fish; flitting about in the rocks just off the sand was an incredibly handsome adolescent Klein's Butterflyfish.   Although he was in constant motion he was extremely approachable.  The combination of clear shallow water and dazzling sunshine made for a spectacular photographic opportunity.  I hope you will agree that we made the most of it.

Regal Parrotfish Immature showing tail crescent

  About twenty five years ago, my boys showed me a Klein's (aka blacklip) butterflyfish at Kahalu'u on a calm day out by the Menehune breakwater.  Shortly thereafter, they
found a citron (aka speckled) in the same general location.  Suffice it to say, they have been good little fishwatchers from an early age.  So impressed was I with these two finds that I named this area Butterflyfish Flats.   Among my myriad of fish related documents, there still exist maps of K Bay, rendered by my hand, with that name denoting the shallows by the Menehune Breakwater. Sadly, it has not proved to be a dependable spot for unusual butterflyfish.

Regal Parrotfish Immature showing vertical bands

  Since those germinal sightings, lost in the shadows of time, I have seen Citron occasionally in Hawaii and in several locations: the pier, the Dog Beach and bay near the Hyatt all come to mind.  On the other hand, although Sandra and I saw blacklip butterfly in Bali, where it is not at all uncommon in Lipah Bay.  But it wasn't until this year that I saw another here in Hawaii, with Peter and Marie up at Mahukona.  I have seen blacklip both times I have returned to that charming little bay.  However, it has always been a shy fish, invariably swimming away from the camera.

   Bob Hillis says that like the Milletseed, Klein's butterflyfish is not uncommon at diving depths.  I wouldn't know.  Seeing one so close and shallow, with such perfect lighting was an early Christmas gift. 

    Sandra and I returned to the pier yesterday.  As I had hoped, the Klein's butterflyfish was right where we left him, in the shallows by the first rocks, halfway between the first swim buoy and the sea wall.   Even more than octopi, an unusual butterflyfish will stay in a spot for quite a while.  With any luck, this handsome fellow will remain in the shallows by the pier through the Christmas holiday.

    Sandra had eschewed her wet suit, so we swam at a brisk (the operative word for the water temperature) clip out to the last swim buoy.  We had been in the water for only fifteen minutes, but sweetie was already

Male Regal Parrotfish showing pale vertical stripe

chilled.  While this may answer the question, "How is Sandra like a fine white wine?" (they are both chilled), she was having none of it and headed back to the beach. 

   I tooled around for awhile, looking to no avail for Bob's octopus.  As I made a general search, I was pleased to see an initial phase  regal parrotfish.  With the accompanying photos to help, you may recall that the immature regal is a light beige (ecru to the sartorially inclined) with a series of darker vertical stripes.  In fact, it is not a visually attractive fish and one might easily overlook it if not for the pale crescent on the rounded tail.

    Our hero, John Hoover, lets you know right off the bat that parrotfish are difficult to identify.  Their coloration is frequently variable and often not very interesting.  I have found the shape and coloration of the

Regal Parrotfish male,  Scarus dubius, Kailua Pier December 2015

tail to be a valuable tool when identifying parrots. The terminal crescent is found on the tail of most stages of regal parrotfish.  Only in the male (the final stage of parrotfish development) does the regal tail gain the handsome violet streamers. 

   Shortly after I lost the chase with that shy fish, another unusual parrotfish appeared.  I had not seen this fish before, suspecting that it was a new iteration of the regal, but not ruling out something new for the Hawaii list.  I chased it into the turbid water by the seawall, where it slowed down for a couple pictures.  In the first, you will note the distinct pale stripe on the flank.  Over less than a minute the pale patch, which had me

Merry Christmas 2015

wondering if this was a new species for my Hawaii list, darkened.  As you can see in the second picture, this is a fairly typical variant of the regal parrotfish male, replete with violet streamers.  This was still a good find, being the fist regal male I have seen at the pier.  Obviously, the turbid water did not improve the pictures of the male regal parrotfish, but I hope you enjoy them if only as a lesson in the perfidy of parrotfish.

   Soon I was back at the pier where Sandra waited for me, wrapped up in her towel to keep warm.  Over the past couple of weeks, we have been enjoying utterly delicious weather here on the leeward side of the Big Island.  I fear that if you are reading the blog from anywhere else on the surface of this emerald orb, your weather has not been quite as good.  So in closing I will send you some Kona sunshine and a warm tropical breeze.

jeff