Nurse shark mania

Cruising across the top of Delila reef yesterday with Lyle, Izzy, Tanya and Taylor when I roll over an overhang. I spot the tail of a large grouper and move in closer to investigate. As I get closer I realize Mr grouper is voyeur. He is intently interested in two nurse sharks in front of him tucked into the reef. We can only see the tails of the sharks but one of them is slightly turned upwards. Their heads and upper bodies are stuck in a whole in the reef. There is not much movement at first. So all of us tuck in under the current to find a better vantage point. Like porn directors we all move in close. Undeterred the action begins. A little wiggle here and flick of the tail there and a sudden rush and flurry and it appears the deed is done. A cloud of sand and, for lake a better term, "White stuff" comes pouring out from under the ledge. Mr Grouper rushes in like a movie extra/Key grip and begins feeding on white stuff I think. The larger shark moves out of the overhang and does a slow steady figure eight near by. The other shark (smaller, possibly the female) keeps her head tucked under the ledge and Mr Grouper enjoys the moment basking in the afterglow that he was not part of. The larger male wanders around but does not go far or seem to care that we are there.
Unfortunately I did not have a camera with me to document the moment. These are some pix of what a nurse shark looks like. It was quite the show. I wonder if there is a market for Shark porn videos? Hum.. Lets search the net..
ciao 4 now

Tony

Feo Flies the coop

Well our little friend has up and left us without saying goodbye or leaving a note. I was diligently watching the little guy every day and even helped him out of a little jam.
You see Feo's parents (the ones that built the nest that fell out of the palm tree) were feeding him a lot. He was growing quickly and I was starting to get high hopes that I had actually done a good thing. Little Feo was active and hungry full time. Early each morning Feo would start to chirp. It was fairly loud and very consistent. Every 2-5 seconds he would chirp. He was almost like a clock. Then if he got a hint the mum was around he would go into a chirp frenzy. Not only was it 10 times the intensity but it was accompanied by a dance and feather russel that would make a flamingo dancer or Vegas show girl envious. So mum, being the caring lovin mum that she was would purposely land a few branches away and make Feo come to her. Stretching his wings and practicing his much needed motor skills was surely the lesson. And mum did it well. So Feo regularly had to work for his meal. Dancing about in a mad frenzy was surely the goal mum was after.
So I notice that Feo has his right leg stuck on something. At first I can't tell but on closer inspection, after mum has flown off for more chow, is that a piece of the nest material is stuck on his little toe nail. The trouble is that the it is an artificial material that mum used to make the nest. Most of the nest is made of dry grass woven intricately amidst stiffer sticks. However mum must have thought herself quite clever when she wove in a piece of white cotton string she found being unattended somewhere. It was this very bit of cleverness that has now entangled poor Feo and effectively chained him to one small area of the nest. It has also wrapped around his leg several times making it very unlikely that he would be able to get himself free.
So in steps the very unnatural human observer (Scubatony) to cut the string and save Feo from almost certain death once more.
The next day without note or fanfare Feo was gone. Nest was there but Feo was not. I checked Priva (Dad's dog) for guilty look on her face but she was clean. Parents were gone as well. So I assume it was a happy ending for the little guy however my mind has thought up a little glitch in the whole "come to the aid of wayward wildlife" scenario.
What if Feo's parents suffered from a genetic defect which caused them to not properly attach their nests. If that were the case Feo would also be a likely carrier of that detrimental gene. If that were the case then Feo was not meant to live and pass on his genes to his offspring. Now he is likely to also poorly attach nests requiring an unnatural human observer to come to the rescue of Feo's fallen offspring. And the cycle continues over and over again.
These are the things that plague my mind......
ciao 4 now

Feo update

Our little guy surviving well. Keeping his parents constantly on the run but they don't seem to mind. Here are a couple of pix to show ya the status of the Mr Ugliness

On a side note, watch out of the latest virus going around the internet. The file name is winpcdefender.exe and it actually looks like anti virus or anti spy ware software. It will throw pop ups at you trying to get to you to buy the product or reroute you to bogus websites. It disables your task manager and in some cases your registry editor which makes it particularly nasty to get rid of. some any virus software will spot it. My fathers Norton did not and I spent about 4 hours trying to get is sorted out. Luckily the net has lots of info on it and many programs like stopzilla and Avast will block it and get rid of it if you are already infected. It was delivered to my system as an email link from a friend of mine. Surely she had no idea she was infected. I did not click on it but my dad did. My friend Sandy got it too today. Just FYI.
Sunny and warm here. What else is new?
Ciao 4 now

Tony