The Daily Bucket is a place where we post and exchange our observations about what is happening in the natural world in our neighborhood. Each note about the bugs, buds, and birds around us is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns of nature that are quietly unwinding around us.
St. Andrews State Park, Panama City, Florida.
I've diaried about this location before. St. Andrews is located at the mouth of the channel that is the entrance to the large bay on which Panama City is located. Large rock jetties have been constructed on both sides of the channel which provide habitat for fish and other organisms that prefer a hard substrate. This type of habitat is rare in the northern gulf, except for oyster bars. In addition, the loop current transports the larvae of tropical fishes and invertebrates up from the vicinity of the Yucatan and deposits many of them here. Most of these tropical organisms cannot survive the winter water temperatures and so are generally only present in their juvenile/young adult stages.
The 2011/2012 winter was quite mild in north Florida and I had wondered if we might saw unusually large numbers of tropical fishes this year. I visited in June, under fairly poor conditions (see next paragraph), and didn't see very much as was the case the last time I visited in early summer. Follow me below to see what we saw yesterday.
I would love to visit St. Andrews regularly and monitor the marine life there. There are three obstacles. First is that it is over a two hour drive from my home in Tallahassee to get there. Second, because the Park is situated right next (really inside) to Panama City with a very active harbor the water clarity is not that great. The best clarity occurs during and immediately before high tides when the dirty water is pushed back into the bay. Thus good snorkeling requires a high tide at the appropriate time of day. Third, even the confluence of high tide and mid-day does not not guarantee success. High winds can ruin what would have otherwise excellent viewing conditions.
Yesterday's conditions varied from OK to excellent with the water clarity and calmness on the outer (Gulf) side of the jetty being the best I've ever experience. I was also using my new Olympus TG-1 Tough Camera which seems to be a bit brighter than my old G-1 and somewhat easier to use underwater. So I got some of my best (not saying they are that great, but my best) pictures of organisms at St. Andrews.
The two pictures I've shown so far tell the main story of the day. There were lots of fish, often good-sized, adult individuals but they were mostly species that are residents of the northern Gulf with tropical species being poorly represented. Also, the sea urchins continue to be abundant along the channel wall of the jetty and have spread to the lagoon side of the jetty but are largely absent from the gulf side of the jetty. As a result the rocks on the channel side are largely bare with areas of algae and encrusting invertebrate while the gulf side has more extensive areas of growth. According to those with longer experience than myself the urchin population fluctuates in a several year cycle.
The top picture also shows a bunch of Sergeant Majors (Abudefduf saxatilis), one of the more northerly species of Damselfishes. Damselfishes are small, generally brightly colored fishes, typical of coral reefs. There were more and larger Sergeant Majors on the jetty than I have seen in the past. However they are not a strictly tropical fish. The other common damselfish on the jetty is the Beau Gregory (Pomacentrus diancaenus) which are brilliant blue and yellow as juveniles and almost black as adults. I saw both adults and juveniles but, if anything, they were less abundant than normal.
The second picture is of a school of Striped Mullet, Mulgil cephalic, a common food fish, which moves between fresh and salt water and are known for frequently leaping into the air. This second picture was taken in the clear water on the gulf side while the first picture was taken on the channel.
Among the relatively few genuinely tropical fish seen was this juvenile blue tang.
As you may not it is yellow and not blue. This is one of the great challenges of fish ID. Juveniles often look drastically different than adults and juveniles tend to dominate in near shore habitats.
One finally picture from the channel before we focus on the clear waters of the gulf. This is a courting pair of Sippery Dicks, Halichoeres caudalis, one of the more northerly species of Wrasse. At least that's what I think they are. Wrasses are common on the jetty but they have a bewildering variety of coloration depending on age, gender, and breeding condition. These guys, like many wrasses can change sex making the situation even more complicated.
Actually now that I look more closely these could actually be bluehead, another kind of wrasse. In this species the 'supermales' have a blue head and green body but females and regular males look more or less like these guys. I have seen a couple of the supermales at the jetty in the past.
A couple of invertebrates. A sea anemone nestled in rocks of the jetty and a comb jelly floating close by. Despite the warning flag I saw no actual jellyfish.
One of the treats of this trip is that that the clear water allowed for seeing a wider range of fish than normal. These young spottail pinfish,
Diplodus holbrooki, young grunt of some kind, and other smallish fish that graze on the rocks are easily seen just about any time you go.
However fishes that favor the deeper water were unusually easy to see because of the clarity. Out near the end of end of the jetty I was able to see large schools of spadefish,
Chaetodipterus faber, easily recognized by its distinctive shape as well as other open water fishes that I didn't get good enough pictures to ID.
A number of bottom dwelling fish were also visible, mostly they were pale and didn't stand out well against the pale sand bottom. Here is a southern Stingray,
Dasyatis americana, fortuitously moving over a patch of dark seagrass debris. These stingrays were considerably larger than the ones I encountered in St. Joe Bay. I would estimate that the largest I say yesterday was about a meter across.
I'm going to conclude this diary with a range of pictures of my favourite fish species on the jetty. It is a kind of blenny and despite long comparison of the field guide to my pictures I am still unable to ID it to species. They live in holes in the rocks and sit out on the rocks, never moving more than an inch from the rock surface. Easily missed by someone not on the look out for fish smaller than their pinky finger they are utterly charming and adorable.