I Got My Gurnard.

Oriental Flying Gurnard, Dactyloptana orientalis

     As some of you have gathered, I am a reformed birdwatcher.  Most people are unaware that at the rarified heights of birdwatching, the sport is extremely competitive.  Its one of the things that keeps birdwatchers out in the forest in the pouring rain,  craning their necks, seeking that one sighting that will put them one up on their fellow enthusiasts.  I have brought that same spirit to finding fish.  I look often and try to have every species possible on my list.  No one is going to one up me, by God!  But for a long time this season I was down a fish.    
    There is a fellow I know who seems a little goofy.  He's a hau'oli, so lets call him Joe.   Like me, Joe goes snorkeling a lot.  Virtually every time I go to Kahaluu, he is hanging around the tables talking to the nice people who encourage the tourists not to tread on the coral (good luck with that!), the lifeguards, or anyone else who might listen.  I've never run into him in the water.  The density of swimmers at K Bay, as it is called by those who choose to abbreviate the Hawaiian to a single English consonant, is pretty extreme and one literally runs into people more often than not.  Regardless of our lack of actual head to head collisions,  I have no reason to believe that Joe doesn't enter good old K Bay and look for fish on almost a daily basis.

Flying Gurnard, Kailua Pier, March 2012, 12 feet

    About two weeks ago Joe cornered me at the end of a swim.  While I was wringing the water out of my swimming shirt, he produced a book with plasticine pages...the sort that grandparents carry around with fifty pictures of their young darlings, the better to drive you bonkers.  Joe didn't have grandchildren in his book, though.  His book was full of 5 by 7 glossies of the fish he had seen. 
    He had me cornered fair and square and he turned the pages, displaying blurry photos of Threadfins, Lined Butterflies, Palenose Parrotfish, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.  Then, all of a sudden, I found myself looking at a pretty nice picture of a Flying Gurnard.  "Son of a bitch." I muttered under my breath.  I had heard of a gurnard at Kahaluu months ago, but it was always a couple lucky tourists.  I had no idea that Joe had seen one, much less lucked out and captured this rather attractive image. 
    "When did you see the gurnard?" I asked, trying not to reveal my envy.  He wove a tale of seeing the fish a week or so before, certain that it had been speared and thrown into the poke pot. 
    Feeling like Saliere the moment he discovered that Mozart was screwing his prize diva, I trudged to the car and drove home.  In such a situation, one can only stay the course, get out in the ocean and remain vigilant.    

The gurnard changed from lighter coloration to darker.

   Over the next week I saw the Bridled and Finescale Triggerfishes, which really made this season's list more complete.  Then finally, on a bumpy, cloudy day at the pier, I got the gurnard!  He was foraging on the sand by the fourth swim buoy in about twelve feet of water.  I'd never seen one that deep before.  I dove the gurnard and got the pictures that you see here.
   The Flying Gurnard  is a member of the family of scorpionfish, which contains a variety of unusual appearing fishes, stonefish, leaf fish, etc.  Unlike other scorpionfish, it does not have poisonous spines.  The elaborate pectoral fins make it appear birdlike as it crawls across the bottom.  The claws on the leading edge of the  "wings" are used to scratch the sand and dislodge small invertebrates that provide the gurnard his daily fare.
    Until recently, the Hawaiian fish was known as the Helmeted Gurnard, in reference to the bony plates of the head.  The chief reason, though, was to differentiate it from the Flying Gurnard of the Caribbean.   It appears that the name has now been changed to Oriental Flying Gurnard, which is obviously more appropriate.
   So when Saint Peter asks me, "Did you get your gurnard?", I can answer, "Damn straight!  And I got him at the pier, where real men watch their fish."
   See you in heaven (which I believe looks a lot like Kailua Bay.)

jeff