Southern Maryland Chesapeake Bay - Nature Log Early August 2010

An updated log of the Chesapeake Bay area wildlife for early August, 2010 - in St. Mary's County, MD, St. Jerome's Creek area....

• Massive schools of shiny anchovy-like fish crackling as they group-jump out of the water - greyish with yellow-tipped fins
  
• Bold juvenile crabs pulling snails off the shoreline reeds at high tide
  
• Ospreys and their grown children busy repairing their nests after summer storms, and harassing the fat Blue Herons and large white egrets/herons
  
• Crabs are running hard - pulling up a couple dozen in just a few hours in 2 crab pots, all male and rusty; lots of trot-liners
  
• "Pencil fish" are schooling now, grown to at least 3-4 inches; saw an 8-incher
  
• Lots of very colorful butterflies now, drinking late-summer weed nectar
  
• The small swallow-like birds are very active at dusk, competing with the bats for all the nice insects
  
• Jellyfish are bountiful (tons of very small ones), riding the currents around the small schooling fish
  

Updated 8/14/2010:

• 2 ft. juvenile black snake curled up in an overhanging tree branch, waiting to drop on something/someone
  
• small crabs mowing down the algae along the bottom of the dock (didn't know crabs liked algae!)
  
• caught a foot-long flounder/fluke, and a fat 14-inch rockfish, a 10-inch oyster toadfish - all in the crab pot; the crabs started chewing them right away, so they became bait