A year-old cowfish.
As a marine educator this is my favorite time of year. From late July to early October southern New England is invaded by fish from the south courtesy of the Gulf Stream Current. For those of you in the southern U.S, many of these fish are commonplace. But for us coastal yankees they provide a yearly thrill.
In the spring fish from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean spawn, and their eggs, at least those species whose eggs float, sometimes get trapped in the northern flowing Gulf Stream. The eggs, and then the larvae that are born within it's warm waters, drift slowly northward. You can see the Gulf Stream's flow in the image below.
Note how the current stays well offshore and would seem to carry any animals riding along with it well out to sea toward Europe. Fortunately for us, and for a few lucky fish, eddies regularly break off from the current and travel, swirling, toward the shoreline. Once the eddies hit shallow water they break apart and spew their contents of drifting weeds, plankton and fish fry into our bays and harbors.
The spotfin butterflyfish, easily the most common and
consistently appearing southern fish in Rhode Island.
These young fish, known collectively as "tropical strays", live on my coast until the first frost comes in the fall. One cold night is all it takes, killing off the whole community. The next year the cycle repeats itself.
The beaugregory is a species of damselfish. It stakes out
a rock crevice and defends it viciously from all other fish.
Blue-spotted coronetfish can grow to six feet in length.
This little five inch one will only eat live guppies.
Only very young fish are found as strays since they do not live long enough to survive more than a couple of months. The ones I capture can be kept warm enough to make it through the winter and grow into adults.
Three two-year-old strays. From top to bottom is a
black grouper, mangrove snapper and pinfish.
The snowy grouper is a mean, nasty fish that will eat
anything it can swallow, and will try to swallow things it can't.
It's named for the white spots scattered over its body.
Extremely rare, this year-old black drum is one
of only three I've caught in 20 years.
A very picky eater, the red goatfish is one of the first
strays to arrive in late July. By mid-August they
disappear, probably moving into deeper waters than
I fish in. Like the drum, it uses barbels on its chin to
rut for worms buried in the sand.
My personal favorite, the short big-eye is a strictly
nocturnal fish that is very easy to catch during the
daytime. The huge pupils help it to hunt in the dark.
This is one of the few strays that probably survive the
winter, although grey triggerfish most likely do not
breed this far north.
The orange filefish hides among drifting seaweeds.
It will normally swim with its head tilted downward so
that the brown lines on its body line up with the weeds.
A type of spiny puffer, this striped burrfish is a
favorite food of swordfish.
Lookdowns start off life with long trailing fins which
shrink as the fish grows.
One of only a handful of cobias I've ever caught, these
fish grow unbelievably fast. This little guy will be over
two feet long by next spring.
All of these fish are currently found in my living collection. Photos by Karlee Markovitch.
This is a cove where I collect many of my strays. If you saw the movie Amistad, you'll recall the scene after the slave ship revolt where they rowed ashore in search of food and water. This is the location (and roughly the angle) Spielberg used for that shot.
Other diaries in this series can be found here.