Reverse time by 3 weeks: a freezing cold bus ride overnight
from Brisbane to Gladstone, breakfast at McDonald’s (oh yes, that’s what the
body needs after a bus ride – and please add a strong dash of sarcasm), and a
ferry boat, we arrived on Heron Island. This
post is late in coming, so by now you’ve all seen the gorgeous pictures from
students: sunset behind the shipwreck, amazing corals and fish, perhaps even a
green turtle! As on Straddie, Tom Cribb
impress us on the first day that fancy diving gear wasn’t needed to see the
wonders of the Great Barrier Reef. A single reef walk with sensible shoes was enough! Indeed, we saw a lot of marine life that first
afternoon (including a moray eel thanks to Nick!). Of course, things only got better. Snorkeling in Shark Bay allowed us to see a
variety of rays and sharks up close (VERY close), and boat trip out to the edge
of the reef revealed green turtles, a myriad of fish, nudibranches, manta ray
and incredible coral diversity. A
surprising story for me was to learn about the cleaner fish and their fish
clients. An area of the reef called the
“Bommies” is where fish come to get ‘cleaned’ by the cleaners. There are
several species of ‘cleaners’, but they all groom other fish by eating
parasites and dead skin off their bodies.
There is a curious relationship between the client and cleaner
fish. The clients like to find cleaner fish
that perform a thorough job (clean well) and not cheat on them (i.e., not eat
their protective mucus coating which is nutritious to the cleaners) and who
provide superior service such as “massage”.
Yes, you heard that right!
Cleaner fish use their fins to beat against the backs and sides of the clients
so client fish can have a relaxing experience.
In doing so, the cleaner hopes
the client will return to his Bommie for business in the future. Now I know there’s a joke in there
somewhere..
To add to this story, the cleaner fish have their own drama
going on. If a male and female cleaner are servicing a host together, and the
female cheats on the client, then the male will bite the female cleaner to
punish her! Clearly he’s trying to protect his business!
A large client with two white and black-striped cleaners attending to him in the Bommies.
Smaller clients also require cleaning!
Awesome student pictures:
The research station and dining room:
Instead of going on and on about how beautiful Heron was
(and seriously, it was gorgeous), I thought I’d talk about the SCARY side of
Heron: sharks, black noddies and mutton birds.
The sharks are obvious. No matter
how much biology you know about sharks and how unlikely they are to interfere
with humans, you can’t help but skip a few heart beats whenever you see one swimming
closeby. There is a rather unsettling
video of me snorkeling with my son in 2 ft deep (so very shallow) water
surrounded by bait fish. You can see
this grey cloud of bait fish swimming around us. Out of nowhere a black tip
shark comes racing up to the school to feed and my son was directly in his target
line as he swam up to feed. Yikes.
Shark with bait fish close by..
Can you spy the shark in the middle of the school of fish? That's me snorkeling above them.
The other scary aspect was the birds. I’m not talking a few birds here and there.
Imagine an island covered in a low (only 8-10 ft) and thick canopy of Pisonia trees
– sunlight barely breaking through the leaves.
Pretty beautiful especially for the hot Australian sun, you would think
this shade would be lovely. Now imagine
a bird, the White-capped Noddie, that builds nests in the Pisonia trees by
using it guano to glue leaves together to make nests. So here’s the kicker.. this 40 acre island
with it’s low canopy has over 70,000 White-capped Noddies! That’s a lot of birds.. every tree averaging
20-30 Noddies producing copious amounts of guano to build their fragile nests…
and now you have to walk across the island UNDER them! That’s all I’m saying.
Our trail from the resort to the research station.. note the low canopy and sign..
White-capped Noddies in the trees....
... and on the ground.
We were also lucky to have the mutton bird during mating
season. Mutton birds burrow underground
to build their nests and lay eggs. Once
the sun goes down, the mutton bird commences its song.. a song of moaning and
groaning, wailing babies was how one student described it. My husband made a recording on the mutton
bird which my sister-in-law says she played at her front door for
Halloween. If anyone was in Concord, MA for
Halloween, you may have been hearing the haunting voice of a mutton bird!
A true wonder for me was to watch the giant green turtles
come onshore to lay their eggs. I led a
group of students out to the beach after 11pm one night and we spotted 3
turtles building nests high above the high tide mark. The only other time I had seen this was in
Cancun last June. If ever you find
yourself in a turtle breeding area during the right season, talk a walk one
night on the beach. Perhaps you’ll be
lucky to see one of these giant beauties.
Green turtle in the reef while snorkeling.
A green turtle digging her nest to lay eggs at night.
Turtle tracks in the sand.
Students hard a work...
and having fun!
Our final days in Brisbane were hectic and sad. We all were excited to move on to NZ, but we all had also fallen in love with OZ.
