The Herring Are Running!!!!

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What makes an alewife run? Why, romance, of course! This evening, I visited the laddders at the herring run, in Jackson Square, Weymouth MA. There looked to be hundreds, perhaps even thousands of these fish there tonight. It AMAZES me every year when I go down to visit the herring run, that these fish make this run every Spring. I was lucky enough to meet one of the Fish and Game Wardens tonight. He said they expect about 100,000 herring to make the journey from the Carolina coast northward, all the way up to Whitman's Pond in Weymouth MA. And they do this EVERY year. Isn't that just AMAZING??

Alewives are ocean dwelling fish that swim up freshwater rivers and streams to spawn. Alewives and bluebacks, collectively known as river herring, are silver colored fish about a foot long.  When rivers become warmer than the sea, usually in early May, the river herring know it's time to return to their roots - where they were born and will in turn give birth to a new generation.  After laying thousands of eggs, many of them (unlike salmon) survive and make the return journey to the ocean.

I spent quite a long time tonight trying to catch the herring jumping up the ladders with my camera. It wasn't easy. The following photo is my best shot, but the quality was not good. I was just thrilled that I even caught one jumping!!! So, when we have lemons, we make lemonade! I cropped the photo and used the Photoshop Filter "Poster Edges" and turned it into an abstract. I'm thinking this photo could be used by Psychiatrists with the question.........""So, please tell me........what do you see in this image"? ;-)

Hmmmmnnnn..........Perhaps I should be visiting a Psychiatrist for even posting this shot!! :-) Call me crazy but I kinda like the quirky abstract look to it. :-)

The Specs for first shot:

Nikon D90, 18-200 mm lens, ISO 3200, 1/200, f6.3

The Specs for the second shot:

Nikon D90, 18-200 mm lens, ISO 3200, 1/200, f9