Jim put together a few video clips taken during the month of April.  It includes territorial displays between two Dragonets and two Eyed Flounder, a small Blue Spotted Sea Robin showing off its beautiful “wings”, and our favorite Dusky Jawfish.

At the end of the video is a clip of a sea spider munching on who knows what on the bottom, when a flatworm crawls into view in the background (right side) and is attacked by a skeleton shrimp.  Squinting won’t help as it is out of focus since Jim had left the camera filming and didn’t see the action until back at home.

Small octopus calling a beer bottle home

The photos in this gallery are a combination of  two days of diving last week – Friday the 27th and Sunday the 29th.  I was lucky to be able to photograph a beautiful orange seahorse, thanks Deb!  The Striated (hairy) Frogfish are returning and Linda found a fantastic, very hairy, pair.  I didn’t even see the little male sitting with the female at first.  There are quite a few octopus around now and I found a little one making a  home out of a beer bottle.  Dwarf frogfish are quite numerous now also, but very hard to spot as they are 1/2 to 1 inch in size and blend into the surroundings very well.  We have found several females that look pregnant and are accompanied by one or more tiny males.

Thanks to Mena’s marker sticks and Linda’s keen eye, I was able to photograph another Dusky Jawfish with eggs.  This time the eggs are more developed with the eyes showing.  On Sunday, two days later, the eyes turned from black to silver and the yokes are getting smaller.  I imagine they will hatch in a few days.  Unfortunately the weather and an earache have prevented me from returning to document any further development.

Click HERE to see the photos.  Full screen playback is best.

Atlantic Sundial laying eggs

Well the dive today was short.  About 5′ of visibility.  If you weren’t touching your buddy, you couldn’t see him.  And it was a cold 71 degrees.  As I was trying to stay with Linda and Mena on the way out to the log to look for dwarf frogfish, I swam over this Atlantic Sundial shell laying pretty blue eggs.  I took three grab shots and moved on, trying not to get lost.  In hind sight I should have spent more time.

Click HERE to see a very short slide show.

Wood Stork preparing to land

Visited the famous St. Augustine Alligator Farm Rookery April 15, 16, and 17. It is a great place to view and photograph Florida’s herons, egrets, and other nesting birds at close range.  It is also challenging to find good compositions among the sticks and foliage. Nesting spoonbills were new to me this year but their nests were deep in the branches and I could not get a clear shot.  I concentrated on photographing the colorful breeding plumage of the birds and practiced a little flight photography. During breeding season, herons and egrets can have dramatic color changes in their eyes, bills, feet and lores (the skin between the eye and bill). They also develop long plums of feathers used in displaying.  I especially like the Cattle Egrets, a common small plain white bird with a pale yellow bill. They really transform during breeding season, showing off intense red, yellow, purple and tan colors.

Nature is not kind. Note that one photo is showing two Great Egret chicks frantically stabbing at an intruding adult that was intent on killing them and stealing their nest.  The chicks won the battle this time.

Click HERE or on the image above to see more.

Blackfin Cardinalfish

The night dive last night was a little strange. It amazes me how often I can get “lost” in such a simple place. I only have a few subjects as my regulator mouthpiece tore off during the dive.  I did manage to find a large Blackfin Cardinalfish with a beautiful gold fin (instead of the usual black), and a pregnant Dwarf Frogfish.  The poor batfish had a mouthful of fireworm spines – ouch!

Click HERE to see the images.

Octopus Eye

This post contains photos from April 11th and April 13th. Here are the highlights:  Found a small clump of hydroids with several Doto nudibranchs, including several laying eggs.  The Flabellina marcusorum in “nudi world”  are still busy laying strings of pink eggs.  Came across  an odd colored baby scropionfish, about 1.5 inches.  It looked black or slate gray, but the strobes brought out an unusual blue/gray color. There is a series of Dusky Jawfish photos.  Dusky’s are much smaller than the more common Banded Jawfish. However, their eggs are much fewer and larger than the Banded.  I photographed this guy on what I’m calling Day 1 and Day 3 of egg incubation.  I have included close ups of the eggs so you can see the development going on. Look closely and you can see the shape of the little fish forming around the egg yoke.  Found an octopus displaying a beautiful lumpy skin pattern and decided to photograph his eye.  The two shots show how the color can change from one second to the next.  Last is another sea spider with eggs and a tiny rare starfish.

Click HERE to see all of the images.

Male Dwarf Frogfish (about the size of a nickel)

Great night dive! Didn’t go very far but found a lot of subjects. Correction, was shown a lot of subjects. Thanks Linda and Judy.

First is a yellowish male Dwarf Frogfish about the size of a nickel. It caught my eye as it drifted by.  As I was trying to find it again to show Linda, she saw the second one, a larger beige female, maybe a little over an inch long.  Next is a stargazer that popped out of the sand and sat there for a few seconds before swimming off into the darkness.  Found a very tiny black fish that I think is a juvenile Black-finned Cardinal Fish.  It even caught a tiny shrimp. Found a large sea spider carrying a ton of eggs underneath its stick-like body. Some other highlights were a few different nudibranchs and sea slugs, juvenile tonguefish, skeleton shrimp, and a cooperative bobbit worm.

Click HERE to see the photos from this dive.
To view full screen, click on the lower right icon.

Orange Amphipod

Today I found my first orange Amphipod, a shrimp-like little bug about half a grain of rice in size and bright orange. Sorry, no babies on this one.  Next, as I was turning over urchins looking for the elusive spotted bumblebee shrimp, I found this green and pink urchin with 5 or 6 very large  squat urchin shrimp in it.  Only after reviewing my photos on the computer did I realize that they were carrying eggs between their legs and outer shell.  I cropped in close on one photo, and you can even see the eyes in the eggs.  Hope you are not tired of seeing the beautiful purple ‘Flabellina marcusorum’ nudibranch. If not, you will be after this slide show.  Finally, a lined seahorse with a large sore on his head. Poor guy!  Hope he heals up soon.

Click HERE or on the photo above to see the images.
You can see full screen images by clicking the lower right icon.

Purple Flabellina Nudibranch (Flabellina marcusorum)

Went to the West side today in hopes of seeing the purple flabellina, a really gorgeous little nudibranch that showed up at the same time last year for a few weeks.  Subjects for this slide show are:  an unusually colored (maroon and white) Rough Box Crab, more regular Bumblebee shrimp, Squat Urchin shrimp (this urchin actually had 5 in it and only 1/4″ tall), the beautiful purple flabellina, a small 3-4″ long Blue Spotted Sea Robin that didn’t mind spreading his wings, and two Eyed Flounder having a duel.

Click HERE to see the rest of the images from this dive.

On Monday, March 26th, Laz found a Osyter Toadfish at the Blue Heron Bridge and was kind enough to show our group.  This is the first time we have seen such an animal there.

Here are a few of Jim’s recent video clips.  The toadfish is at the end.  Remember to turn up your speakers and play it full screen.