HUDOLPHIN SCHOOL FEEDING ON PIGSKIN MACKERALSNAPPERS AT ST. AUGUSTINE BEACH

After Katy and Rob's wedding, the support crew was totally exhausted, yet very happy that the hard work and the weather had combined to make the wedding ... well, kind of dreamy.

Luckily, we had chosen to stay on the beach, so the following post wedding recovery day was pretty awesome.

Our luck held out on this day also, as the rare Hudolphins (Tursiops hunkatus) were feeding in the surf break.

Even more amazing, we were able to see their even rarer prey, the Pigskin Mackeralsnappers ( Snapperus oblongus).

For a nature lover like me, it was a pretty special day. Again, fortune smiled, as I happened to have the Olympus Tough "everything proof" camera with me.

The following shots were taken while the Hudolphin pod fed all around me in about 3-4 feet of water.

I can't help rooting for the prey a little when I watch big, intelligent predators feeding.
In the photo above, the little Pigskin Mackeralsnapper has jumped high enough to elude the Hudolphin below.
I know, I know, predators have to eat, but it is nice to see the prey get away once in awhile.

Research shows that the female Hudolphins are the most intelligent and graceful of the species. Nothing I witnessed that day contradicted that hypothesis.

The bull Hudolphins seemed to be not only feeding, but leaping especially high with impressive splashes as they fell back into the sea. This is probably a courtship or territorial display, much like we see with Gulf Sturgeon in the Suwannee River. 

If you are wondering ...  no this little Pigskin Mackeralsnapper did not get away.

One more sign of Hudolphin intelligence ... they seemed to celebrate or even congratulate each other when an especially difficult catch was made.
Not a good day to be a Mackeralsnapper ... and yet ... there was this one Mackeralsnapper who made a valiant effort to defend his school.
You can see him attacking one Hudolphin head on as another leaps away from the angry bull Mackeralsnapper.

It was awesome being so close to these wild creatures and just another reason to love the ocean.

You never know what will turn up when you venture in.

Beach Pups, Great Whites Who Tweet, and Poop In Your Tilley Hat

Bear sniffs for signs of Mary Lee, the  16.5 foot, 3600 pound, GPS tracking,  transponder wearing,   great white shark that was about 200 feet off a nearby beach a few weeks ago.
Mary Lee has a transponder on her dorsal fin and every time she breaks the surface with that terrifying triangle, her beacon "tweets" her location via satellite to the folks who wrangled her and attached it.

Bear is always on the lookout for such things ... squirrels, UPS trucks, and great white sharks are high on his watch list.

The pups, Coquina and Peanut, waited impatiently for the "all clear" from big Bear.

While they waited, Coquina pondered the awesomeness of a shark both longer and heavier than the red JEEP that brought her to the beach.
Peanut chose to put his leash through a chew test.

When Bear gave the "OK" woof, the pups raced for the surf in true Moon Doggie mode.

Afterwards, at Peanut's request, Coquina did a quick sniff test to determine if his deodorant was still working.

It was.

Of course, since dogs don't sweat like us, it wasn't a valid test, but we didn't have the heart to tell the pups.

Beside it was a cold winter day ... who needs deodorant on a day like that?

The water was cold, the air was crisp, and after a good romp,  3 wet dogs were eager to get back in the JEEP for the 2.5 hour ride across the state.

Yes, that would be me, Emma, Coquina, Peanut, and 100 pound Bear ... all in a JEEP Wrangler.

And this is a REAL JEEP Wrangler ... not one of these new stretched and cushified new "jeeps".

No sir, mine is short and cramped like a JEEP should be.

And did I mention that Coquina had some ... digestive issues about halfway through that ride ...

OR

... that my expensive Tilley Hat must have resembled a toilet to her?

And I was worried they might "chew" on it during the ride.

Silly me.

You can see a short GoPro video of the pups at the beach below:

Sloughs of Whiting

I grew up in a multigenerational surf-fishing family who spent vast amounts of time on the beaches of St. Johns county, Florida.

My earliest fishing memories are all surf fishing ... we didn't have a boat until I was 13 or 14, and even then, most fishing trips were surf ones.

This is not a long nostalgic post about those times, but let me tell you, we lived on the beach for days at a time with my surfishing fanatic parents and grand parents and it was outstanding!

We weren't staying at any beach house or yet to be built (ugh) condo's ... we camped.

Nana and Papa had a camper trailer that they hooked to their JEEP. They would drive north along the Anastasia Island beach until they found a good slough, far away from the tourists who clumped near the beach entrance ramp.

There they would stay for weeks at a time while we grandkids rotated in and out in shifts. We lived like wild things and ... whoa ... this IS turning in to a long nostalgia post.

Not gonna do it. Nope.

So, anyway ... the video illustrates what we surf fishing fans call a slough. It's nothing more than a trough that forms between longshore bars. These bars build up parallel to the shore as the currents constantly shift sand from here to there.

Probably THE most delicious fish to come out of a slough is the hard biting, hard fighting peepsqueak called the "WHITING".

Having said that, please realize that the term "Whiting" applies to a host of other fish species and your whiting is not necessarily MY whiting.

The whiting down here is really a kingfish ... but not the kingfish in the mackerel family. That "Kingfish" is really a "King Mackerel", but everybody 'round here calls them either "Kingfish" or just "Kings".

Confused?

This is why we need those Latinerdy scientific names.

We would go bonkers without them ... or should I say, "DELIRUS ire placet sine."

Here in Pure Florida, our "Whiting" are two cousins ... either the Gulf Kingfish (Menticirrhus littoralis) or Southern Kingfish (Menticirrhus americanus).

Whiting love those sloughs and the chow that gets washed in to them... shrimp, sand fleas, tiny crabs. Whiting are not big fish, a two pounder is HUGE for whiting. If you are familiar with the more glamorous redfish, whiting look a little like mini-redfish without the coppery color or the tailspot.

The similarity is not coincidence, both reds and whiting are in the croaker/drum family, and both can be caught in a beach slough ... as can sharks, flounder, black drum, and pompano.
Of those other fish, only the flounder can compare with whiting for sweet fish goodness.

If I were going to get all nostalgic here, I would go on about the smell and taste of whiting only ten minutes out of the sea,dredged in cornmeal and fried by your Nana on a camp stove, on a beach long ago, in a Florida far way from this one.

But I am not going to get nostalgic over a fish and a depression between sandbars on a beach.

Nope.

Not gonna do it.

Vilano's Empty Winter Beach

Bear says, "The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful!"
(He's such a Buffett fan)


Vilano beach is very shelly and is a pretty decent place to hunt for fossil shark teeth. It's not as productive as Venice or Englewood for fossil sharks teeth,but it's definitely worth a look if finding ancient teeth is your thing.
It is mine, although not with 100 pounds of labradork tugging on a too short leash.
I'm surprised any of these photos are in focus!



It was a cold day and the sun was setting fast when Bear and I took our beach walk ...
Make that "beach run", a beach outing with Bear almost always involves running.

Ahhh, solitude.
I love the emptyness of a winter beach.
The photo above is looking south towards St. Augustine Inlet.


Looking north.
Empty here too!

This red coquina shell beach is a real vehicle trap and even 4WD's can wind up sitting mired on their frames if the driver is careless.




This driver was not careless and did not bury his JEEP in the shell sand.
Guided by his faithful dog, he made it out alive.

(Bear and I are both trying to look serious in this photo ... he smiled first immediately after this photo, so I win)

A Slow And Somewhat Impulsive Ride Home From Tally: Part One- Shell Point

Tuesday afternoon, the FLVS training ended around 3:00 pm. As soon as I hit the JEEP, I pointed her south and kept on until I was just on the outer fringes of Tally. At a gas station near a fork in the road, I texted my fellow FLVS trainee and buddy, Stacy, for confirmation of my gut feelings regarding which road to take.

See, Stacy has one of those fancy Drone ... no, wait... that's different, ... a DROID phone that can do almost anything you ask of it.
I do not.
I'm a flip phone, basic package kinda guy ... although I did just get a new phone ... a CONVOY. It's a man's phone built to military specs, weather proof, shockproof, and FC proof!

No, since you ask, I do not have a GPS in the JEEP.
I have a Silva Ranger Compass that is 30 years old and needs no batteries or satellites. It does require a brain however.

I'm off on a tangent aren't I?

Apparently my brain forgot to toss a road map in the JEEP this trip, hence the text to Stacy.

I new SR-61 would get me to the coastal zone, but would SR-363? I thought so, and Stacy used her fancy girl phone to confirm that for me.
So I headed south on that fork.

After awhile I came to US-98 and cruised a little west and south to Shell Point.

Most of Shell Point seemed to be private homes, but there is a little beach with a sweet curve for the public to enjoy.
It was mid-afternoon on a workday, so the beach was almost empty. In the parking area next to the sand, some locals stood around a pickup with a pretty yellow lab in it, just enjoying the great breeze flowing off the Gulf of Florida.

A tough old red cedar stood a few feet from a slowly rising Gulf. It seemed odd to have a fence around it ... red cedars are not a migratory species after all.

So I walked over to read the sign.


Shouldn't that be "... in AN effort ..." ?

The tree is doomed by rising sea level, but the efforts here and the toughness of a red cedar should keep it around for a while.
There's no denying it's a beauty and this beach would miss it dearly.



It makes me wonder why "Extraordinary" efforts weren't used to save the area above.
If you turn 180 degrees from the beach tree view, you get this.

A row of ugly condos, an almost certainly dredged basin, seawalls, and probably filled wetland.
If it were an old condo, it would not be so surprising, but it's very newish looking ... we are STILL dredging basins like this in this day and age?

I should have expected condos and yachts when I hit the "Golf Cart Community, 15 mph" sign at the entrance to Shell Point ...

It was a bright day with good contrast.

(subtle no?)





This willet was about the only decent critter shot on the whole ride home. Mostly the trip was about scenery ... rivers, boat ramps, a little saltwater, tiny communities in transition, a favorite honey (the sweet kind, not the girlfriend kind ... now that doesn't sound right either ...), bodacious BBQ, and a final glorious sunset.

All to come in the next couple of posts.

You are invited.

Beach Ghost

Before we go to that other, shellier beach that I hinted at yesterday, let me share this.

While I was photographing the terns in yesterday's post, a woman came walking down the beach and stopped at a respectful distance. I could see her on the periphery as I shot the terns and I thought she was just bird watching.
She waited around until I finished my tern photos. As I walked near her on the way back to the JEEP, she spoke,

"There's a ghost crab right over there and he's standing his ground. You can probably get a good shot."

I thanked her. She smiled and walked on.

I turned to the crab, already knowing what was about to happen.

Ghost crabs are THE fastest crab on the beach. They usually only pause for a moment and then scoot off, fairly flying over the sand.
Then, they disappear down their burrows up past the high tide line.
This is standard procedure.

Which means, I have very few, and very poor quality ghost crab pics in my collection.

So I fully expected this ghost crab to take off like the Roadrunner on my big brother's favorite cartoon.


When I got this close, I was totally stoked and thought this was as good as it was going to get.
As is my way, I inched closer and closer, not really believing my good fortune, since this crab was not running away.
This crab really WAS standing it's ground, alternately taking a few steps and then stopping and raising it's claws in a defensive posture.
That behavior is totally unlike any ghost crab I have ever encountered.

I got down on my knees, switched the camera to macro, and literally got in the ghost crab's face.
I had my camera just about 6 inches in front of her perky face ...
... and then it hit me.

(not the crab ... understanding)

He was a she and SHE was really, really pregnant. I think she was feeling the biological imperative to get to the water and spawn.
That is what was keeping her from dashing off as usual.

I shot one bazillion and one closeups and then, sympathetic to her condition, I backed off and let her continue on her way.


Once upon a time, in my National Park Service turtle Ranger days, I viewed these crabs as the enemy.
The sea turtle hatchery I operated was completely fenced to keep these rascals from moving in and chowing down on my seaturtle eggs. A single ghost crab could cause big trouble deep in a seaturtle nest, and you would not know it until that nest failed to launch.


This little girl, with her precious cargo, softens my view.

She's just a little crabby.