Bandtail Goatfish!

     Yesterday was another cool morning at Casa Ono.  At 7 AM, as I usually do, I sallied forth for an hour or so in the garden.  This morning, however, I went out like a crusader to battle with the ancient enemy.  In this instance, I was not going after the minions of Saladin, but the morning glory vine that
grows to the tops of the ornamental fig trees that create our border. 

Saladin, the scourge of the Crusaders,

 The problem is, we can see the vines in the treetops, more than twenty feet above the ground.  Up there, the leaves, flowers and seed pods create a messy distraction.  But at ground level the vines bear no leaves and, despite a substantial growth in the treetops, the vine itself may not be all that large.  Couple this with twenty feet of tangled monstera leaves and trunks that stand between the crusader and the fig trees and you have a problem.

    Unfazed, I entered the monstera, working towards the figs.  Eight feet in I met my match, falling backwards into the monstera.  I landed softly with those large leaves to cushion my ungainly bulk, but my head was down slope and I was stuck.  For a while I flapped around on my back like an overturned turtle.   In a word: pathetic.   Sandra came down as I extricated myself, but that was all the vine hunting we were going to do that morning.   I cut away the damaged monstera and hauled up a dozen or so monstrous leaves.    And then it was time for some hydrotherapy.

Bandtail Goatfish  Kailua Kona 11/ 24

   As we disembarked at the pier I noted that there were a bunch of children playing in the water.   Wading in with my fins and mask, I was passed by a child who approached an attractive young lady in a form fitting yellow rash guard.  He needed an equipment adjustment and as he swam away I asked the lady if she was in charge of all these kids.  "Just the little ones." she replied.  We agreed it was like wrangling cats, but she had it under control.

   As soon as I put my face in the water I was rewarded.  To my left was a small flounder and to my right, over the sand, was a pair of Bandtail Goatfish.  These are not your everyday goatfishes.  I have seen them at least once in Hawaii, in that very spot and once in Fiji about 35 years ago.  Sandra and I were with Peter when he saw them (or so he said) over the sand by the LST landing at Kawaihae Harbor.  So in roughly 40 years of fish watching I have two or three sightings and one near miss.  This is an uncommon species!  

Bandtail Goatfish, U. arge,  weke pueo  11/24

     As you might have gathered, these fish are found over sand, often in the shallows, and they are pan-Pacific in distribution.  As I watched this pair they joined a single Yellowstripe Goatfish to dabble together in the sand, as goatfish are wont to do.

    What proceeded after was delightful but not too remarkable.  Way out in front of the palace, looking down at the coral, I saw a number of Argus Groupers hiding in crevices.   Last spring I had expressed some concern for this introduced species (and got some blowback for worrying about a species that might be deemed an undesirable exotic.)  Anyway, they are handsome and currently plentiful in Kailua Bay.

    I also got a quick look at a Spotfin Squirrelfish as it dodged out from beneath a large living coral that has withstood the ravages of global warming.  This was a good fish for the list, now well started, but at 67 fish, hopefully in its infancy.  

     Over the next four months we will see a few more squirrelfish and hopefully many others with which to amuse you.  And did you notice?  I overcame my technical incompetence and succeeded in wifi-ing the photos from the Olympus TG 5, to my cell phone and emailing them to the computer where Corel Paint shop permits me to tweak them for our mutual delight.  And so, I can finish off this blog with three pictures of the Bigfin Squid taken a week ago.  I hope it was worth the wait.

jeff

    

Bigfin Squid, Kailua Pier 11/24

We don't need no calamari.