The Mellow Ocean Fellow

Hi guys!

Quick update, I forgot to mention in my last post that I have some of my little friends from last year return to this camp! These goofy kids: Aviel & Alina (siblings), Charlie, Jasmine, Sophie, Lioness, and Josh are some of the Pier's Park returnees that definitely make my day! My little buddy Josh has definitely matured since the last summer that I've seen him! He's become so self aware of the sun that he's constantly spraying on sunblock under the tent to the point where he's getting in trouble for it! This little guy will definitely make sure you're covered in sunscreen from head to toe if you don't have any UV ray protection! Another thing that I thought was pretty gnarly was that Jasmine has been collecting pine cones from the lawn.

"The Collector Jasmine" and her backpack filled with pine cones!

On another note, our fish traps have landed us some fish that we didn't even know were inhabiting the very rocky shores of Pier's Park! When we swapped out the bait in our fish trap and lowered the trap so that it'd touch the bottom, instead of snagging a boat load of crabs, we caught what looked like some species of "sculpin." These fish had spiny dorsal fins and shared some of the same coloration as the juvenile bergall that we've been catching at this site! I was half expecting some baby flounder/fluke but this is definitely not a bad surprise! We'll definitely be sticking with utilizing these crabs from the crab traps as bait for the fish traps. With these new additions indexed into the Pier's Park variety in aquatic life, we were able to explain to the children that because of how the pectoral fins were slightly angled, the fish could "trod" along the Boston harbor sea bed unlike the juvenile tautog's that probably constantly swam around the rocky shore.

Our new find at the bottom of the Piers Park rockey shoreline!

Thanks for reading my blog, I'll let you all know as soon as possible if we find any other cool new fish!

Raymond