Hornyhead Fish & City Nature Challenge
My cakeist weekend
This past weekend I wanted to do two different enjoyable things on the same Saturday, a first-world dilemma, yes.
Thing one was something I’d been looking forward to all year, the City Nature Challenge, an international bioblitz which was expected to be the biggest one ever. A bioblitz is an intense period of biological surveying to record all the living species within a designated area. Local bioblitzes happen all the time, but this past Saturday was big-ticket in the world of community science. Hundreds of thousands of observations would be logged. I didn’t want to miss it.
I learned about thing two when I saw a social media post about the upcoming Hornyhead Fish Festival. Same Saturday. Sounding offbeat yet celebratory, the festival gave its own big-ticket vibe. About to be diverted from a goal once again I felt confused, not an unfamiliar feeling. I called my friend Kathy to tell her about my cakeist 1 dilemma. Cakeism is the wish to have or to do two good things at the same time when this is impossible. When Kathy answered, her sharp hello was delivered over the clamor of a kitchen being tidied (women know), and I thought: Kathy is busy. I did not take the hint.
“Have you ever heard of a hornyhead fish?” Instant quiet from Kathy’s end. Then, “The what?” I could hear her voice better now. Off the speakerphone now, is why.
I guess the kitchen was clean enough because now Kathy seemed to give her full attention as I described a small Georgia town that every spring celebrates an unusual minnow-sized fish by throwing a down-home festival. All of the good stuff you’d want with that sort of thing––local arts and crafts, music, hula hoops, food, a contest with prizes––was planned for the day.
“These hornyhead fish?” I continued. “They’re basically just little brown fish, but the guys? They grow horns. For mating, it attracts the ladies. Newborn, Ga. is only an hour away, and I think we need to go. They have a fishing tournament, and the winning fish will have a lot of horns on its head. And Kathy, the best fish will be the longest fish. Size matters.”
Kathy: “Hmmmm, yes, that’s true. I do love small towns. I see myself living in one someday. Never even heard of Newborn.”
Me: “People laugh about the festival. Says in the article ‘most people snicker at the name hornyhead fish.’ But I don’t know, I’d kinda like to go see it. Problem is, I’m already committed to something else––the iNaturalist City Nature Challenge is Saturday. How can I do both? Hmmm. Too bad. How can this work?. . .”
After that some more things happened. Before you knew it, Saturday morning had arrived, and Kathy and I were wearing our sunhats over in Newborn, Ga. We were happily immersed in one of the best springtime activities there is: meandering through an open-air festival, admiring crocheted doilies here, purchasing dinosaur kale and red onions there, while breathing in the grassy smell of fresh country air. To solve my cakeist problem, Kathy and I had worked out a plan where I’d bioblitz for iNaturalist down at the festival, starting with the hornyhead fish itself. Easy as shooting fish in a barrel, pardon the expression.
The hornyhead fishing tournament itself happens the morning of the festival when some 25 to 35 people sign up to try to catch a prizewinning hornyhead fish. Participants head out to local creeks, go fishing, then bring in their best fish (it must be alive) before a noon deadline. Gregg Ellwanger, mayor of Newborn, was chief judge for the day and naturally he wore his white Hornyhead Fish t-shirt to underscore the importance of the proceedings. We watched as he received a dozen, maybe 15, entries that started arriving at the scoring table around 11:30 a.m. Ellwanger would lay the fish down by a ruler, measuring the length and then counting the horns. Fish slips off table and hits dusty ground? Ellwanger was an unperturbed mayor who’d probably seen worse. He just grabbed the escapee, dipped it in the bucket for a quick rinse, then went back to the measuring and the counting.
Kathy and I were part of the crowd of onlookers who wore expressions of good-natured excitement. Everyone was happy for everyone right then, right there. We hooted when impressive tenths of inches were named, or good horn numbers were announced. Not one person gawked ironically. Eventually, winners were named in various age divisions and winners were called to the stage and given shiny trophies and cash prizes. All fish are released back to local streams. The year 2023 was historic. The longest-ever hornyhead fish ever recorded in Newborn was caught, an 8.1-incher with nine horns! A real looker.
Not one person gawked ironically.
By day’s end, I had submitted seven separate items of flora or fauna for iNaturalist and the 2023 City Nature Challenge. First, as you now would probably predict, was the hornyhead. My image joined 540 images of other hornyheads in the 10-year-old iNat database. Also, I submitted an image of a dainty bluebird that we saw perched on a gravestone. For the flora category, we walked through the town’s streets where I documented wildflowers while Kathy was happy to absorb Newborn’s quiet vibe. I documented a blue toadflax, slender vervain, slender yellow woodsorrel, pink-sorrel and a fig tree that iNaturalist identified as a “common fig tree.” But that particular tree at the edge of the town park? Not common at all. In fact, a sign out in front of this multi-pronged giant said: Historic Fig Tree.
Kathy: “That’s some tree.”
Me: “That’s one tree? More of a house-sized bush. Looks like the roots go down, then sprout back up.” We scanned the leafy green branches clamoring out from a mysterious dark center.
Kathy: “There’s a trail going in. Shall we?”
Gloomy shade and a dusty scent enveloped us as we went in, looked around, then took a different trail to get back out to daylight. The spooky inside was not enough to stop me––snap, snap, snap––from getting two closeups and one distance shot of that common fig tree, all ready for eventual upload to iNaturalist.
The Saturday of twin events, the festival and the community science, was cakeism at its best. Our walkabout through town may have helped us digest the curious festival food item we’d tried, an Armadillo Egg, which turned out to be our only non-cake moment of the day. I want to describe it to you, that egg, and I’ll even add a photo because I don’t want to leave you thinking community science is all buttercups and baby butterflies. An Armadillo Egg is a $6 oval of cholesterol, an enrobed food item like your Hostess Snowball or your Turducken. Kathy and I split this snack made of cream cheese, jalapeño pepper, finely mashed sausage both undercooked and fully cooked, and fat-streaked bacon. We were happy to try it, but once was enough.
As for the Hornyhead Fish Festival, we want to go back next year, since once was not enough of festival fun. We are thinking of fishing in the 2024 contest, then enjoying the other festive events afterwards. I can see us now, once again strolling along in our sunhats, but this time clutching fishing poles while teeny fishing lures swing from our hat brims. The idea sounds good now, so we’ll have to wait to see what 12 months brings.
Upcoming:
Firefly Watch. Expect these little sparks of light in the night soon around Georgia and get ready to help out as a community scientist. Fireflies are neither flies or bugs, they are actually beetles with rear-ends that light up because of a chemical reaction.
Georgia Audubon is working to better understand the issue of bird/building collisions in the urban areas around Atlanta. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has ranked Atlanta as the 9th most dangerous city in the U.S. for birds during spring migration. Whether you are at home, work, or out shopping, please report any avain collision victim you see to the D-Bird database. D-Bird is an online crowd-sourcing data collection tool designed by New York City Audubon.
Cakeism is the wish to have, or to do, two good things at the same time when this is impossible. The term, now in the Cambridge American Dictionary, originates from the time that Boris Johnson was prime minister of the UK. Example: The notion that, after Brexit, the United Kingdom would continue free trade with the European Union was sheer cakeism. Adjective: cakeist.