At Sea
And now the star of today’s show, the Variable Blenny! He’s not very big, it’s true, just a couple of inches long and weighing in at barely one gram, but he makes up in force of personality what he lacks in dimension. Unlike his close cousin, the Striped Blenny, who is quite shy and retiring when approached with a camera, our friend the Variable (let’s call him VB) is bold, charismatic and rather a hog of the spotlight.
Of course, all this is based on territory; leave him alone and he won’t show much interest in you either. After all, it’s a busy life and there is a lot to be done; there are tiny crustaceans to ferret out of the algae and gobble down, passing bits of plankton to pursue and gobble down, random bits of other stuff to gobble down just on the off chance that they might prove to be edible, and, of course, there is the constant need to chase and bite any other VBs that might be foolhardy enough to enter his chosen patch of algae-covered rock.
In fact, biting seems to be the VB’s greatest skill. Train your camera on a beautiful nudibranch in his territory and it will soon be bitten; put a finger down on his rock and it too will be bitten before long at all (fortunately the VB’s bite is not of any great consequence to large, thick-skinned mammals like ourselves – it might even be described as “difficult to perceive”).
The one thing that VBs don’t seem willing to bite is the camera itself. Even with the huge glass port of the underwater video rig just an inch or two from his face, he can’t quite seem to muster the courage to attack. Or maybe he sees it as more of an opportunity than a threat. Certainly the VBs show a wonderful variety of reactions to the camera’s presence. Some will flee to the other side of their rock, but others will stand their ground, staring into the lens or swimming rapidly back and forth with considerable agitation. But the real stars simply ignore the camera, turning their backs on it and going about their routines with studied nonchalance: “I’ll just rest in this hole here, with my back to you, not noticing you over there…think I’ll eat this bit of plankton now…nope, still don’t see any huge cameras around here…just another day on the reef.”
The Mediterranean is full of beautiful and fascinating marine life, some rare and some common, some subtle and some obvious. Trying to capture good video footage is always challenging and occasionally very frustrating – sometimes great action is over in a flash and some creatures are very shy indeed. It’s always a pleasure, as an underwater videographer, to meet a marine creature with the star quality of the Variable Blenny.
And now the star of today’s show, the Variable Blenny! He’s not very big, it’s true, just a couple of inches long and weighing in at barely one gram, but he makes up in force of personality what he lacks in dimension. Unlike his close cousin, the Striped Blenny, who is quite shy and retiring when approached with a camera, our friend the Variable (let’s call him VB) is bold, charismatic and rather a hog of the spotlight.
Of course, all this is based on territory; leave him alone and he won’t show much interest in you either. After all, it’s a busy life and there is a lot to be done; there are tiny crustaceans to ferret out of the algae and gobble down, passing bits of plankton to pursue and gobble down, random bits of other stuff to gobble down just on the off chance that they might prove to be edible, and, of course, there is the constant need to chase and bite any other VBs that might be foolhardy enough to enter his chosen patch of algae-covered rock.
In fact, biting seems to be the VB’s greatest skill. Train your camera on a beautiful nudibranch in his territory and it will soon be bitten; put a finger down on his rock and it too will be bitten before long at all (fortunately the VB’s bite is not of any great consequence to large, thick-skinned mammals like ourselves – it might even be described as “difficult to perceive”).
The one thing that VBs don’t seem willing to bite is the camera itself. Even with the huge glass port of the underwater video rig just an inch or two from his face, he can’t quite seem to muster the courage to attack. Or maybe he sees it as more of an opportunity than a threat. Certainly the VBs show a wonderful variety of reactions to the camera’s presence. Some will flee to the other side of their rock, but others will stand their ground, staring into the lens or swimming rapidly back and forth with considerable agitation. But the real stars simply ignore the camera, turning their backs on it and going about their routines with studied nonchalance: “I’ll just rest in this hole here, with my back to you, not noticing you over there…think I’ll eat this bit of plankton now…nope, still don’t see any huge cameras around here…just another day on the reef.”
The Mediterranean is full of beautiful and fascinating marine life, some rare and some common, some subtle and some obvious. Trying to capture good video footage is always challenging and occasionally very frustrating – sometimes great action is over in a flash and some creatures are very shy indeed. It’s always a pleasure, as an underwater videographer, to meet a marine creature with the star quality of the Variable Blenny.
