Sunday, October 26, 2008

Shoal Creek

There's something cool about trekking through a creek, connecting with nature, and trying to net interesting specimens for a closer look. (I stress trying because sometimes they can be both elusive and evasive.) Overall, it's a time when you can't help but give in to the power of a moment that's both exciting and relaxing.

Shoal Creek was the first creek we checked out in the area of Pease Park -- a really popular park and home to the annual Eeyore's Birthday Party. We came out with a dip net and some bread and hot dogs for bait. The dominant fish we found -- by far -- is the mosquitofish. You could see some pretty big sunfish too, though much too big for our needs. While scooping up mosquitofish, we came across a few silver-gray fish with these two black spots. Nose to tail, they were barely a half inch long. After a bit of research we concluded that these were Texas Cichlids -- the only cichlid native to the United States. How cool that they are right here -- and plentiful -- in Shoal Creek. On a later visit, we came upon a nesting pair of adults about six inches in length. They are definitely Texas Cichlids, appearing whitish in the water and you can even see the cranial bump on the male.

We continued to monitor Shoal Creek through the fall. The lack of rain had been substantial and the creek had already been dried up north of Pease Park for some time. We spent a weekend moving hundreds of sunfish and cichlids from isolated pools to deeper and wider pools downstream. The water was so shallow, you could scoop up half a dozen or so at once. But because the pools were still wide -- and these fish are fast -- we could not possibly move them all. By late September, these isolated pools that we helped evacuate were completely dry.

With the oscar gone, we quickly turned our first aquarium into a creek display. We discovered a great way to get to know your native fish is to watch them up close. The Texas Cichlids that we put in looked great. They have a pearly gold color with tons of turquoise and black spots all over. We got our second aquarium when Shoal Creek was rapidly drying up specifically to house these cichlids. Being a 20-gallon tank, overcrowding was definitely an issue. Texas Cichlids have a reputation as being feisty and needing their personal territory. One source recommends sixty gallons to comfortably house one of these guys. Some of ours perished and the others we returned to the deepest pools in Shoal Creek.
Shoal Creek, July 27th 2008.

Shoal Creek, September 19th 2008.

We never took a picture of a cichlid in an aquarium. But here are some in a bucket being moved to a deeper pool as the creek was quickly drying up.

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