What Lies Beneath

I've written about some of the cool critters we see out in the Gulf, but had to come home to have the time and bandwidth to actually upload video.

So here it is, with thanks to JJ Grey (with whom I briefly sat on the board of a marine conservation non-profit) for the music.

The camera is a Panasonic Lumix duct-taped to the end of a hook pole. No live view as I was filming, so please excuse the herky-jerky quality of the video.

Wildlife

I said in the previous post that we don’t have a lot of bugs or birds in the field we usually work. I haven’t seen any noteworthy pelagic birds yet, but a yellow-billed cuckoo did land on the boat the other day.

I suspect that during the spring migration, in particular, we’ll get some neo-tropical fallout aboard the boat.

We’ve had some interesting moths hitch rides. Back at the dock, there’s a resident alligator and I’m told that in the winter there are lots of bald eagles along the Atchafalya and Gulf Intracoastal Waterway here.

Otherwise, the birds are pretty much the same we see on the Texas Gulf Coast – White Ibis, Great Blue Herons, Laughing Gulls, Brown Pelicans, grackles and mockingbirds top the list.

Out in our regular field, we frequently see large barracudas and the occasional shark around the platforms. Blue runners (hardtails) and Bermuda chubs are common on the surface. Dolphins (dorado, mahi-mahi) cruise through from time to time. Haven’t seen any tuna or billfish yet, but I’m sure I will.

It’s a pity the company has a no-fishing policy. I’m pretty sure our platforms are loaded with snapper, grouper and amberjack.

I’ve fleetingly glimpsed a few dolphins (the mammals) out here; I didn’t get a good look, but they were small and I’m guessing were the Atlantic white-spotted species.

The coolest critters I’ve seen so far are the flying fish. We have big ones and little ones. The big ones, which sometimes land on our deck, look a lot like mullet with wings. The little ones look just like grasshoppers taking flight from a field, and I’m pretty sure they occupy about the same ecological niche out here.