Grunion Greeting

In response to an email that came round on one of the local email lists, Emily and I attended a training session in the act of Grunion Greeting this evening.

Grunion are a small fish that are only found in this part of the world. For reasons best known to themselves they choose to make on the beach, in a mass fishy orgy style.

We are told that they wait for a nighttime high tide around this time of year, then ride a wave onto the sand. The lady fish dig themselves into the sand and deposit eggs. Meanwhile the men fish come along and writhe alongside the lady fish, sperm-a-go-go. The next wave that comes sweeps them back into the ocean. Apparently this can go on for a couple of hours, can involve thousands of fish in one area and is, understandably, quite a spectacle.

Little else is known about the grunion, so we're helping out in a study that aims to track year-on-year the numbers of grunion on the beaches here. If we Grunion Greet three times when we get a free bag. How could we resist!?

Our first evening of greeting takes place on the 15th. Expect photos (hopefully not of an empty beach).