We walked in the creek. Apparently it's become our warm-weather holiday tradition. We spotted these fish, that I photographed poorly, and one other cool long-skinny-stripey one that I missed altogether.
Hubby said he thinks this is a sunfish. I looked online but couldn't find anything that matches exactly. (I'm hoping one of you will enlighten me.)
The weather was hot, the water was cool. The gnats were horrible. The mosquitoes, surprisingly, weren't unbearable. I did get an interesting bite that looked like it might have come from a 6-inch-tall vampire. It's still a little swollen, but I've experienced no bloodlust so far.
It hasn't rained in over three weeks. Most of the county got a nice downpour last weekend, but not here. The grass makes sad crunchy sounds. Hubby put in drip irrigation in most of the garden again this year, so I fired it up for a good soaking this week... and forgot to turn it off. For a long time. A looooong time. An "I'm embarrassed to tell my husband exactly how long" long time. The plants didn't seem to mind.
11 comments:
I think your husband is right, it is probably Lepomis (i.e. a sunfish) judging from the overall shape and that dark spot just behind the gills. Specifically, I'm thinking Lepomis humilis based on the coloration: compare with this one. Just a guess though.
How fun to see some sunfish. I remember catching sunfish as a kid. They were the easiest thing to catch.
Your overwatering sounds a lot like our experience watering horses. Oops.
Looks like a pumpkinseed to me. Pumpkinseeds, sunfish, bluegills, crappies: all great freshwater panfish up here, I am kinda surprised you don't have them down there too, as I figured you knew EVERY species everywhere!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkinseed
Definitely a sunfish clan member and I would go so far as to say a male pumpkinseed all dressed up for sex.
Thanks y'all. I had looked at all those (plus bluegill sunfish), but these didn't seem to exactly match any of them... these guys seemed to be blue in from and orange in back, as opposed to both of those others being orange on the bottom... but maybe they are just variable?
By the way El, except for Trilliums, I don't know ANY species anywhere... I just look them all up! :)
Fish are notoriously hard to photograph!
Ouch, your water bill. And then it finally rains this morning! I like the idea of a traditional holiday creekwalk -- very nice.
What, no rain over there? I usually watch the weather radar as all the heavy downpours cross Alabama and then fizzle as they cross into NW Georgia. We got 0.5 inches Sunday. Not as much as I wanted, but it helped.
We did finally get rain Sunday, about a half inch. I was hoping for more, but at this point I'm happy for anything!
And then this morning (Tuesday) a completely unexpected quarter of an inch more.
I'm guessing the long, skinny striped fish was a gar, we see them all the time in the Cahaba.
Hello from Birmingham!
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