Tag Archives: nature

R is for Reef

Coral Reef watercolor

R is for Reef Realestate

Native Name: Bahura

The Reef is an underwater ocean city

Made of the colors & creatures also found in the depths of your imagination.

Brilliant blue angels & purple porcupines

Tangerine sponges & lemon sharks

Dolphin queens & dugong kings

Creepy crawlers, poisonous spines, silky pearls & polka dots

of every shape and size.

Some eat plants, some eat each other.

Forever living, forever breathing, watching, building, swimming and eating.

They dance, enchant and take your breath away.

Forever & ever & ever

P is for Purple Parrotfish Poop

Swarthy Parrotfish Scarus niger

P is for Purple Parrotfish Poop

Scientific Name: Scarus niger

Palawan: Mol Mol, Tagalog: Loro Loro

These Parrotfish are one of many contributors to the beautiful tropical white sand beaches in The Coral Triangle. They are particularly fond of eating the algae film that grows on coral. They chomp into the coral with their beak (actually fused teeth) to get a mouthful of both coral and algae. The crushed coral helps the fish digest the algae and is then pooped out in the form of particularly perfect, soft, white sand. Next time you are relaxing on your tropical vacation, remember to thank the parrotfish.

Side Note: These particularly pretty purple parrotfish look most like the male Swarthy Parrotfish – Scarus niger. The ones observed here have slightly different spot patterns behind the eyes but it could be a local variation or due to a shift between initial and terminal phases. This is the way I saw them so this is the way I paint them. There is also that glorious possibility that they are a new species, sigh, the scientific holy grail.

parrotfishpen ketch of Female (above) and Male (below)

N is for Nudibranch

nudibranch abc makeyevN is for Nematocyst Nipping Nudibranchs

Scientifice name: Chromodoris elizabethina (left) & Chromodoris annulata

Tagalog: Dugo Dugo

“Nudis” are a brightly beautiful group of sea snails without shells. When you are a tiny, squishy sea creature with out a shell, you can feel a little nude and unprotected. Anemones don’t have shells either but they do have stingers. Nudis have a special way to collect anemone stingers (aka nematocyts).

First they go up to the anemone and touch it to make sure it is really an anemone. Then they retreat back to a safe distance. Next, they charge back to the anemone and start munching on the dangerous tentacles, they swallow the stingers and absorb their power. Soon the little Nudi is able to sting like an anemone.  This is why Nudibranchs eat the poisonous stingers off of anemone tentacles. Stingers are not just delicious treat for these brilliant little sea slugs.

C is for Colorful Coral Creatures

red coral
C is for Colorful Coral Creatures
A Watercolor
by Claudia Makeyev

Tagalog: Gasung

Scientific name: Corallium spp.

We all live attached together underneath the big blue sea.

Up close we each resemble an itty bitty Anemone.

Call us Coral

Dugongs like Surfboards

Dugongs
Dugongs, a water color by Claudia Makeyev

These gentle “sea cows” share the Order Sirenia (mermaid) with manatees. They graze in the underwater meadows of tropical sea grasses but are not complete vegetarians. Every once in awhile, they munch on a slow moving jellyfish, polychete worm, or sea squirt.

I discovered that the shy curious Dugong is attracted to surfboards. There is a nice little right point break near… (nope, not telling, he he he), where Dugongs pop their big noses out of the water, investigating you and the surfboard’s dugong-like silhouette. Gentle, graceful marine mammals, it IS like meeting a mermaid.

They are traditionally eaten in this area but are now protected. Being endangered and charismatic aquatic mammals, they bring significant tourist dollars to Busuanga. 30+ Dugongs now swim in the waters around northern Palawan and this year there were 3 calves.

Rain

Rain.

The Typhoon Season is approaching slowly.

Everything seems to lean towards something and long for water and for a break in the heat. This heat is impressively oppressive. Walking feels like physically pushing oneself through warm chunky soup. Everything agrees to move slower.

A quick rain shower washes the heat and clears this humidity away. It is relief in its purest form. You begin to crave the water and the cooling affects of the storm but like a bizarre addiction, it will be a short lived pleasure. The moisture will evolve into torrential rains that raise the rivers, anger the ocean and soon take over and drown the whole country in brown. The silt and dirt from the towns will flow over the reefs and there will be many casualties both coralline and human. It happens every year.

island kids

island kids

The mornings here are very nice. Calm.

The insects buzz in the dry tropical forest. Cicadas. The Tuko Tiger Gecko calls out his TuuukO! Tuuuk-O! The soft lapping of the bay up and down the shore. The peeping of the chicks, crowing of the roosters. I finally found a local coffee that is palatable to my foreign taste, 6 hour journey to the little town. Totally worth it.

There is a small village on the other end of the beach, hidden behind the mangroves. At a glance you would think you were completely alone.

Morning is when the kids paddle by on narrow bamboo rafts to go fill their water jugs for the day. They sing as they push their way across the water. The acoustics of the calm water elevates their innocent little voices. A homemade songs without an end. Is it just to pass the time? Is he singing about the village, the ocean? Family, the canoe, the fishing? There is something so dear and pure about a childs voice, regardless of the language or culture. It warms the heart every time.

Today one little boy is completely without clothes, it must be laundry day. From working at the school, I know a lot of kids only have 1 pair of clothes. He can’t be more than 6 years old. This is not like back home, kids sent to school with a lunch box full of neatly plastic wrapped food. No bike helmets, no training wheels, no bike, no coloring books or reading, no cartoons or baseball teams. Just the ocean and your family village. This little one paddles by early every morning to get water and bring it home. He then fishes the reef with his little brother in mid morning. They float over the reef on their small bamboo rafts dipping their heads in the water searching, searching, foraging for food. giggling.