CORALS

THE CORALS OF FOWL CAY MARINE PRESERVE, ABACO

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I usually have 3 or 4 planned posts on the go. Some are quick to compose, some are not. Especially those requiring technical input from the technically unsound – downloading a video, changing the file format, editing and polishing, uploading to a compatible ‘carrier’ etc. I’ve been meaning to get round to making some fish and reef videos from footage of a trip with Kay Politano of Abaco Above & Below. Now I have… coral8

If you are tolerant enough to at least start this one, which focusses on coral, can I restate the excuses? I swim like a panicking cat. I hadn’t snorkelled for a great many ~~decades~~ years until 2011. I was a stranger to underwater scenery, let alone photography. I wave my tiny camera around too excitedly, though not deliberately to inflict seasickness on hapless viewers… It is a bit less bad this time round, however. Luckily I can tell from my stats if anyone has bothered to click on the video below, and you can rely on me to trash the thing if I find a paltry (or non-existent) response. Best just to watch on the small screen, though. coral14

With those dire warnings, here is the video. I would be very interested to ID all the corals that can be seen. There are the easy ones like sea fan, elkhorn, mustard hill, brain… but what’s that one over there? No, behind the waving one…? Comments / suggestions welcome. And if you don’t much care for coral, there are some pretty fish to look at…

Music Credit: Adrian Legg’s ‘Old Friends’, from ‘Guitar Bones’

CONTRASTING CORAL SKELETONS

These two different types of coral skeleton are from the northern end (and just beyond) of the Delphi beach. The red marking on the second coral is some kind of natural accretion, I think – I have temporarily lost the exact details somewhere on my hard drive, but doubtless they will turn up sooner or later… You will find these red patches on shells as well as coral

COMMON ROSE CORAL

ANY IDEAS FOR THIS ONE?

Another dramatic coral you may come across – not least because there are usually one or two in the beach-harvested collection on the steps down to the beach – is BRAIN CORAL (DIPLORIA). Here is an example (Photo credit J. Stuby)

A CORAL GALLERY

The standard rh policy applies here – upload pictures, sort out ID / descriptions later / hope for expert advice on the ‘difficult’ ones… These images are all stills taken from a video taken at the Fowl Cay Marine Reserve (see also REEF FISH), and are each subject to change if I clip a better one, or deletion at whim.

MUSTARD HILL CORAL