Tag Archives: Red Hind

Uncategorized

Day 11: Big Toadfish, Bigger Reef

Leave a comment

We finally began our first research project here on the reef! This one focuses on parrotfish behavior, particularly their feeding habits. We decided to focus on four species of parrotfish, stoplight, redband, redtail, and striped parrotfish.

We returned back to the two patch reefs off the dock of Middle Caye. I paired up with Elise and we began our search for striped parrotfish! We found four groups that kept darting around between the reefs and seagrass, constantly being chased way by damselfish.

While roaming around the closer of the two patch reefs, we spotted a white spotted toadfish hiding in the reef, which was super cool.

I think I saw the tail of a red hind hiding in a small cave, but the cave was too dark to tell. However, we did stumble across a huge trumpetfish hiding in some branch corals!

We returned to two further patch reefs after lunch to look for more striped parrotfish. During that process we saw a cave with huge French and queen angelfish and a couple of blue tangs. We also saw this weirdly shaped fish with a huge body and a tiny caudal fin rush by. We tried to chase it but it was a bit too fast šŸ˜”.

As we continued to swim along the edge of the reef, we kept seeing more and more huge angelfish and blue tangs. Apparently two barracudas were spotted in the area but we never saw them. Our underwater camera also broke almost as soon as we got into the water in the afternoon, so we were unable to take any pictures of these fish.

Right before dinner, Dr. Evans and Dr. Solomon went back to the close patch reefs to spear a couple lionfish. They were successful and managed to catch two!

We ended our day with a couple of extra presentations from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the organization that owns Middle Caye, the Belizean Fisheries Department, and the Coast Guard, which were all super interesting and insightful. I never realized the full reach of WCS, and the same organization that owns the Bronx Zoo also does work out in Gloverā€™s Reef/Atoll.

All in all, today was a really fun and eventful day. Hoping to see more of what these reefs and this atoll has to offer!

Ian C

Uncategorized

Day 10: First Snorkle!

Leave a comment

Today marks our first day on Middle Caye! Breakfast is back at 7:00 AM, which surprisingly doesnā€™t feel that early anymore. We started the day with a morning practice dive, trying out our snorkel gear in the ocean for the first time. Whatever happened in between the first time snorkeling in the Rec pool and now mustā€™ve been a miracle, because I felt so much more comfortable snorkeling in the ocean this time.

We swam out to the nearest two patch reefs, both to get comfortable traversing through the ocean and to get the opportunity to start looking for wildlife. We saw a queen conch, some bonefish, parrotfish, and some purple fan corals!

After lunch we went for our first real snorkel, to a patch reef called the Aquarium. There were so many cool fish, including a resting nurse shark, a stingray, schools of various parrotfish, damselfish, and a ton of blue tangs.

As for groupers, there were a couple of red hinds, and although not true groupers, we saw a couple harlequin basslets too.

It was a super cool experience as Iā€™ve never seen a coral reef with my own two eyes, and the amount of fish hiding throughout the reef was insane. Everywhere I looked there would be something cool to see, and Iā€™m really excited to find more!

Ian C