Oceanside Grunion Run

Every little girl has their dreams, ever since the fourth grade, after a beach camping Junior Ranger presentation, mine was to witness a grunion run.  Today, my dreams came true...

Just before midnight, Marla, Eric, the girls, and I went to the beach for all of our first ever grunion run, and we had company.  Not the shady characters that we were expecting at midnight in Oceanside, but thirty or more fellow grunion runners, people with flashlights, screaming, and running  from the ebb and flow of the rising tide as they tried to find and collect grunions.

Eric found his calling, he is a master grunion runner.

Four months out of the year, on full and new moons, at high tide, female grunions move with water as the waves break onto the sand, dig a little hole, and then release their eggs.  As the females have their rear ends buried, males find them, wrap around their bodies, and then release their sperm.  

Fishy sex education!

As Eric was trying to hold onto one of the silvery, slippery fish, he emptied out a female's ovaries.

So, the whole story checks out.

I don't think this was a dream of the girls, but it is something they will never forget!

We probably spent an hour and a half at the beach, but the time just flew by.

There wasn't the quantity of fish that I was expecting, with fish covering the sand, but it means that the next time, it should be better.  April and May were "observation only" months, and when we do this again, I would like to see it then.  These poor little fish have no chance at all to spawn when it is "open season."  Not with hungry grunion runners around.

So, so much fun.