C - Capelin
In 1981, I moved my family to St. John's while my wife and I attended University to complete our Master's degrees. We moved into a 2 bedroom apartment with two kids - five and one year old boys. As you can imagine, this was quite a difference from a 3 bedroom house with a fully developed basement and took some getting used to. To escape the confined quarters of a small apartment, we often drove to nearby communities and spent time on beaches and trails. Of course, I always took my cameras and made photos wherever we went.
This morning I chose to share slides of capelin that I took in Outer Cove during the first summer we lived in St. John's. The first two photos show schools of capelin that had come close to me as I stood on the beach making photographs. The third photo shows a couple of capelin that "rolled" on the beach to lay and fertilize their eggs but were stranded, along with thousands of other fish, and died. The beaches were covered with dead capelin which provided food for seabirds and crows. The fifth photo shows a feather on a beach covered with capelin eggs, the future generation of the small fish. The last photo is a closer view of the eggs on the beach that morning.
Capelin, like many other species of fish around the world are dwindling in numbers and there is an amazing difference in the numbers of capelin 30 years later. They still come to our beaches to spawn, but there are fewer of them and they seem to come later in the summer. A fish that used to come to our beaches in June now seem to spawn in July and August. One summer I photographed a small school of capelin spawning in King's Point, Green Bay on August 26 which was unusually late!
and photographic enlargements.
and/or wallpapers/screensavers.
1 comment:
Ecellent series showing capelin coming ashore to spawn, and/or be caught by humans et al.
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