Mourning Doves in the Spring

We have mourning doves that frequent our back deck all during the year but there seem to be more of them in the spring and summer. I love their gentle coo sounds. Sometimes they are a nuisance – building their nests in a gutter resulting in a clogged downspout in the next heavy rain.

Back in 2016 it seemed like they were using our deck railing as a favorite courting/mating spot…and it’s happening again this year! I have been away from how so much recently that I was surprised to catch them in the act!

I wonder if the occasional red tailed and red shouldered hawks that we see are attracted to our area by the doves that seem so plentiful already (and are evidently prolific too).

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 12, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Why I Speak Up for Science – National Geographic – A short piece about the need for science in everyday life….why science is important for everyone.

From property damage to lost production: How natural disasters impact economics -- ScienceDaily – The economic impact is more than just a single point of property damage and lost production…there is a ripple effect that can increase the overall impact significantly over what insurance covers and it beomes a very complex problem to estimate.

European Union Bans All Outdoor Uses of Neonicotinoids - Yale E360 – Shouldn’t we in the US be at least this concerned about the health of bees and other pollinators? Why have we not done more to curtail the use of neonicotinoids?

Top 25 Urban Birds – National Geographic – Some birds are thriving in the cities of the world.

Common Eye Disorders Explained: Cataracts, Glaucoma, AMD | Berkeley Wellness – Prevention, signs and symptoms, treatment…well organized and easy to understand.

These daggers made from human bone were a deadly asset on the battlefield | Science | AAAS – They are from New Guinea….and decorated. Most of the time they were made from cassowary leg bones….but sometimes human thigh bones were used.

US gains in air quality are slowing down: New study indicates challenges of meeting ozone goals -- ScienceDaily – I live in an area that has an increasing number of ‘code red’ days (high ozone). This study indicates that emissions from cars and power plants are understood well enough…but not other sources and that is probably why the trend toward better air quality is slowing down.

BBC - Future - How prison changes people – Evidently the personality change that dominates is an inability to trust others….but there are other common changes as well. Prisons almost seem design to change personalities for the worse.

City upbringing, without pets, boosts vulnerability to mental illness -- ScienceDaily – We need to figure out how to make cities a healthy place for everyone --- including children.

BBC - Future - Why pristine lakes are filled with toxins – A study done on Lake Geneva revealed cadmium, mercury, lead…sometimes in high concentration…from decades of plastic build up in the lake. Other studies of the microplastics in the water (and in water that has been processed for drinking) and then beer and honey from the area. Lots more research is needed on the impact to wildlife in and around the lake.

Brookside Wings and Wine

Earlier this week we attended an evening event at Brookside Gardens that included wine tasting and appetizers in the non-butterfly end of the conservatory building….then watching the butterflies respond to the sun sinking to the horizon.

When we first entered, the conservatory seemed calmer. The zebra longwings – and other butterflies – were beginning to find a roosting place in the fichus tree.

Others were on the walls or ceiling of the conservatory. I’m sure there were many that found a place in the foliage where I didn’t notice them.

There were two flowers on the passionflower vine that is the food plant for a couple of the longwing butterflies; there were no butterflies around it.

Just before sunset, the owl butterflies became more active – many dances through the air. I was waiting for the male cecropia moth that has emerged from its cocoon last Sunday to fly from where it had been hiding in the fichus tree all day. But it stayed where it was. These larger moths do not eat as adults so maybe there was no pheromone in the air of a female cecropia moth…and he didn’t feel the need to move!  I contented myself with a zoomed image of it through the foliage.

Clearwing Butterfly

Some butterflies do not have scales…or have very few of them. There are a few specimens in Brookside Gardens’ Wings of Fancy exhibit and I’m always thrilled to see them. I rarely spot them on my own and most of the time I’m busy with my volunteer job as a ‘flight attendant’ so I can’t take pictures. Recently I was walking around the exhibit – not volunteering – and I had my camera and a tripod. There was a school group visiting the exhibit and they’d spotted a clearwing!

The butterfly was focused on breakfast of nectar from some white flowers (the proboscis was not rolled up between flowers….the insect was hungry!) so was staying put long enough for pictures.

The ribs that provide the structure for the wings are more obvious when the wing is clear. In the case of this butterfly they are a metallic copper color. Sometime that color is reflected in the thin membrane that is the wing.

There do appear to be a few scales on this time of clearwing – on the upper edge of the wing…some white and copper color.

Seeing a clearwing is one of the things that makes a walk in the exhibit special.

Macro Photography with a Smartphone

Before my second shift at Brookside Garden’s Wings of Fancy exhibit, I spent a few minutes doing some macrophotography with my Smartphone. I ordered a clip-on macro lens from Amazon last fall to use to photograph macroinvertebrates but haven’t done a lot of other photography with it until now.

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Brookside Gardens is a great place to experiment. There is so much in bloom right now including the buckeye near the conservatory. The flower has a very odd shape through the macro lens (it looks like it has Mickey Mouse ears!). Even the tips of evergreen shrubs become something unexpected.

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The center of the dogwood bloom is a riot of shapes. I’m going to photograph them again next time I go to see how it changes as the seeds start to develop.

Dandelion seed puffs are recognizable.

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Just about any flowers are good subjects for macrophotography.

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I ran out of time in the garden. My shift was beginning. I got one last picture just before the first visitors came into the exhibit – a spicebush butterfly egg on spicebush leaf. It looks like a very tiny pearl.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 5, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Top 25 Birds Protected by the MBTA – National Geographic Blog – The Migratory Bird Treat Act was passed in 1918…and covers over 1000 species. Enjoy pictures of 25 of them!

Atlantic Ocean circulation at weakest point in more than 1,500 years -- ScienceDaily – Something else that could cause more rapid increase in sea level rise on the US East Coast.

Spring Sediment Swirls in the Great Lakes – Image from April 20th after a storm. The areas are the lakes are losing soil.

NASA planet hunter on its way to orbit: Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite successfully launched -- ScienceDaily – Hurray! TESS was launched on April 18th…and should be ready to begin work something in June.

Compound Interest - The chemistry of tulips and tulip fingers – After seeing the tulips display at Brookside…this article caught my attention. I didn’t notice if the gardeners taking up the bulbs were wearing gloves…or whether they were the right kind.

Dark chocolate consumption reduces stress and inflammation: Data represent first human trials examining the impact of dark chocolate consumption on cognition and other brain functions -- ScienceDaily – I like dark chocolate. It’s a good thing that it has positive health benefits but I would probably still eat it even it didn’t.

Which US Generation Has the Best Eco-Conscious Habits? A Survey+ | CleanTechnica – Boomers, Gen-Xers or millennials. It’s a clever way to highlight ways to become more eco-conscious.

On The Hunt For The Elusive Morel Mushroom In Ohio’s Appalachian Country: The Salt – Morel mushrooms are tasty….enough that people keep their spots secret and turn off their GPS locators when on the hunt!

These Are the Cities With the Worst Air Pollution | Smart News | Smithsonian and Compare Your Air | American Lung Association – Read the summary from the Smithsonian blog then go to the American Lung Association site to compare cities. Where I live gets and ‘F’ for Ozone.

Diseases from Ticks and Mosquitoes Have Tripled | The Scientist Magazine® - Lyme Disease and Zika have caused a lot of the increase.

Wings of Fancy – 1st shift

I had my first shift for this season’s Wings of Fancy shift at Brookside Gardens earlier this week. The exhibit is opening an hour earlier this year to take advantage of the morning temperatures. Visitors will appreciate that during the summer. Like last year – I took a short walk around the gardens before heading into the conservatory. The gardens are lush even with the variability of rain and temperatures so far this spring.

The azaleas are blooming but I decided to walk through the are where the tulips are blooming….lots of color on a spring morning. I walked fast because it was chilly at 8:30 AM (in the 40s and breezy).

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I was in the conservatory waiting for the first visitors and decided to take a few pictures. I was surprise what I was able to do in 10-15 minutes! My theme was heads – eyes, antennae, proboscis, and papillae. I’m sure they’ll be many other butterfly pictures this season (the exhibit runs until September 16), but I’m pleased with my first batch. Hopefully a reflection of the happy place the exhibit creates comes through too!

Photography through a Window – April 2018

The juncos were in out backyard and frequent visitors to our feeder and birdbath at the beginning of the month…and then they left for their nesting grounds to north and west. We won’t see them here in Maryland until it gets cold again.

The big story of month for our backyard was more about trees than birds. The red maple bloomed and made seeds. I am watching for when the seeds helicopter away from the parent. Of course, some of our backyard birds (cardinals and goldfinches) were in tree for some of the pictures. They like to snack on the tender seeds.

The tulip poplar leaves are unfurling with the pods from last summer still holding a few seeds.

The sycamore is still looking very much like it has all winter; it is always one of the last to leave out.

The tree I haven’t photographed yet is the black walnut. I noticed last time I walked around that it had some leaves unfurling but it’s location requires that I walk to it rather than trying to photograph it through a window!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 28, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Significant role for nitrate in the Arctic landscape -- ScienceDaily – There is much we need to learn about how the arctic ecosystems work today….and what will likely happen as they warm. The carbon and nitrogen cycles will speed up…but how does that translate to the types of plants that will grow there.

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act at Fifty – Protection of some special places….rivers and the banks.

Artist Paints Imaginary Ecosystems Bursting with Colorful Flora and Fauna – Eye candy for the week! (The paintings are also inspiration for Zentangles.)

A is for Aerosol: Earth Matters – A little tutorial that includes satellite pictures of different kinds of aerosols like volcanic ash, sand/dust storms, fog/haze, smoke.

New NOAA Report Looks at National Coastal Flood Vulnerability – The whole report can be found here. Figure 6 (page 26 of the PDF…14 of the report) shows annual high tide floods days per year from 1950 onward. There is a color skew toward more days in the last decade for many areas. Another flood related article: Flood risk denial in US coastal communities -- ScienceDaily – research about how to move communities from denial to taking mitigation actions to reduce the risk to their community.

Without Birds, Lizards, and Other Vertebrate Pollinators, Plant Reproduction Could Decline by Two-Thirds - Yale E360 – Pollination drops an average of 63% when vertebrates (like lizards, birds, bats, mice) are kept away. Wow! Pollinators are not all insects.

When Going Gluten-Free Is Not Enough: New Tests Detect Hidden Exposure – It’s hard to live a gluten-free diet in the modern world…and that is what 3M people in America are trying to do. This article increased my awareness of how hard it it….and how many people are impacted by celiac disease.

The Sahara Desert Has Grown 10 Percent Since 1920 - Yale E360 – The expansion has happened mostly to the south…during the historically rainy summer months. This is one of the first studies to look at precipitation over the course of a century rather than a shorter time.

Influence of global warming on U.S. heat waves may be felt first in the West and Great Lakes regions | NOAA Climate.gov – Maryland is included in the ‘Great Lakes’ region based on the map; in this area more than half of all heat waves would be predominately due to global warming by the mid-2030s. In the west it happens even earlier (by the end of the 2020s). Lots of people live in those areas and the statistics currently tell us that more people in the US die each year of heat-related illness than any other weather disaster.

Sweet potato history casts doubt on early contact between Polynesia and the Americas -- ScienceDaily – DNA studies of sweet potatoes show something about history…and about its closest wild relative (good for the long-term viability of the domesticated crop).

Free eBooks – April 2018

It is so easy to find historical books that are available online – scanned with care and ‘free.’ I can remember a time when I went to libraries (often not finding the book I was looking for) and how expensive it could be to buy books. Now I find myself rarely spending money on books. There are such riches of books these day. The world of books has changed in my lifetime almost as monumentally as the advent of the printing press! Here are three picks from the books I found this month.

Ogata, Kori; Aikawa,Minwa. Korin gashiki. Kikuya Kihē, Kyōto, Bunka 15. 1818. Available from Smithsonian Libraries here. In the image I chose to clip from the book – I like the simplicity of the drawing of the cranes (and chicks). I also like the way water is drawn; it is easily used as a Zentangle pattern.

Mars, Gerhardt C. (editor). Brickwork of Italy: a brief review from ancient to modern times. Chicago: American Face Brick Association. 1925. Available from Internet Archive here. Somehow the mellow color of brick and the architecture in the illustrations in this book were very appealing.

Merian, Maria Sibylla. Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium. Amsterdam: 1705. Available on Internet Archive here. An early book about butterflies…and their caterpillars. Merian was a leading entomologist in the early 1700s…and was one of the first to publish color images of insects…particularly documenting metamorphosis of butterflies.

Ten Little Celebrations – April 2018

April has gone by very quickly…full of company and travel and the beginning of the spring volunteering blitz.

Six of the 10 little celebrations were experiences outdoors – typical celebrations of springtime everywhere:

• Blue birds and tree swallows were making their nests I the boxes at Mt. Pleasant in Maryland.
• There were ducklings at Josey Ranch Lake in Carrollton, Texas.
• An eared grebe at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge near Sherman, Texas.
• Macroinvertebrates in the Middle Patuxent close to home.
• Spicebush in the forest behind my house and at Belmont Manor and Historic Park (both in Maryland).
• Deciduous Magnolias blooming at Brookside Gardens. Maryland got a freeze at the wrong time in 2017 and most of the blooms turned brown from the cold just as they were opening. It was a treat to see them again this year.

I celebrated the end of two long driving days between Maryland and Texas. Both were blustery and more traffic than expected. It felt good to be done!

My new iPad is something I celebrate every time I create another Zentangle with it! I a pleasantly surprised with how easy I made the transition from pen and paper tiles to digital.

I thoroughly enjoyed a meal at a Brazilian steakhouse – this time managing to savor the flavors and not overeating. I even topped off the meal with dessert!

Finally – the Watershed Summit where the high schools of the county presented their report cards to the county government for their steams and school yards – based on data they collected last fall. Each of the 13 high schools had 2 presenters. They all were so poised and organized. It was a double celebration: the environmental findings trending positive in most cases and the quality of the students in attendance. Both bode well for the future.

Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in Spring

I visited Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge earlier this week. The day was too cold and too windy….but was the only one that fit it the schedule. I remembered to take pictures of the metal work near the visitor center.

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In the garden near the front of the visitor center, I didn’t see any butterflies…but there were dried blooms from last season left on the trumpet vine growing on the arbor and a clump of bluebonnets (we’d seen larger patches as we drove to the refuge along the highway).

We decided to use our car and a moving blind and protection from the wind….making our way slowly around the wildlife drive of the refuge. There were not many birds but enough to make some photography attempts. The most unusual was a Eared Grebe in breeding plumage. Someone in the visitor center had commented about seeing a pair but we only saw one.

There were some American avocets a little too far away for a good picture on a cloudy day. They can be identified with the picture I took….and there is a Great Egret in the foreground.

There were also Snowy Egrets (black bill and legs, yellow feet).

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Very far out in the water on snags were American White Pelicans and Double Crested Cormorants.

The Greater Yellowlegs was closer and intent on finding some lunch.

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The Great Blue Herons were numerous and seemed to all have the blue topknot of mature birds.

We saw one turtle positioned for maximum sun (warmth) but there were probably more.

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There were still some Northern Shovelers on the water; most of them have left for their breeding grounds in the north. A pair of Blue Winged Teals were hiding in the plants beside the road as we were leaving; they are close to their breeding grounds based on the allaboutbirds map…so might have just been making a last stop over.

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I took a few shots of wild flowers as we drove out of refuge….just rolled down the window and used the zoom!

Not bad for a cold, cloudy day!

Posts from my visit in November 2017: part 1, part 2.

Josey Ranch Park in Carrollton, Texas

The baby ducklings I posted about yesterday were the spring highlight for me at the part….but I was pleased with other sites too.

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The buttercups in the grass…and the serendipity of catching a butterfly in flight between flowers.

The male grackles were facing off…asserting their dominance.

There was a scissor-tailed flycatcher that posed on a post for picture.

I hadn’t realized how similar they looked to mockingbirds that are also in the area….except for the vary long tail.

I saw two pairs of ducks (other than the mallards) that are probably getting ready to leave for their breeding ground further north: gadwalls (photo is of the male)

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And northern shovelers. Both were probably more numerous in the area a few weeks ago.

There was a squirrel that did not look happy for me to walking nearby as

An American coot that didn’t seem to know I was there at all.

My round-trip walk was about 2 miles…good exercise…and a good outing for some photography.

Ducklings

There were two cohorts of Mallard ducklings at Josey Ranch lake in Carrollton TX last week. I walked saw them on two different days – one group had 7 ducklings and the other 8. There are some larger turtles in the lake that might be a threat while the ducklings are so small – but the parents (sometimes with extra helpers) were attentive and keeping the ducklings in the shallow water away from deeper water where the turtle could pull them under.

Most of the time the ducklings stayed together. There were several instances that it appeared that the female was making sure all of them were still with her! There seemed to be more males that females around the lake and all the adults seemed to be near where ducklings were.

Enjoy the ducklings – one of the sure signs of spring!

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 21, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Adventure Photographer Captures Majestic Scenes of the Natural World – Starting out this group of gleanings with some eye candy!

Arctic sea ice extent at 2018 winter maximum was second smallest on record | NOAA Climate.gov – It will be interesting to see what happens to the Arctic this summer since there was less ice this winter.

With a Green Makeover, Philadelphia Is Tackling Its Stormwater Problem - Yale E360 – This article discusses what Philadelphia is doing…also what Philadelphia has learned from other cities. Dealing with stormwater has become a challenge in many urban (or suburban) environments….and rain gardens, green roofs, wetlands, and other techniques are leading to more sustainable solutions.

More Reason to Leave the Car Behind When Visiting the Columbia River Gorge - News | Planetizen – Have to keep this in mind for a vacation to the Northwest.

A North American Climate Boundary Has Shifted 140 Miles East Due to Global Warming - Yale E360 – Quite a few of my family members live in the Dallas area…and they are now on the dry side of the boundary!

Basking sharks gather in large groups off northeast US coast: Group sightings are fairly rare -- ScienceDaily – Opportunist data gathering…maybe someday it will be clearer why they happen with the second largest fish in the world.

Google X Spinoff Dandelion Raises $4.5 Million To Explore Residential Geothermal – Residential Geothermal primed to become mainsteam?

Birding For People Who Do Not Like Lists – Cool Green Science – This is me…a birder that does not like lists. I’m just thrilled to watch them…trying to get good photographs of them.

More than 50 new Nasca Lines, found with the help of GlobalXplorer and citizen archaeologists | TED Blog – citizen scientists searching satellite images.

Top 25 Wild Bird Brood Parasites – National Geographic Blog – I never can resist the collections of bird photographs….even these that are brood parasites.

Ready for Butterflies

Last week, I went to the hour-long class for volunteers for Brookside Gardens Wings of Fancy. It was a refresher about how to handle the containment of the butterflies in the conservatory and the stations within the exhibit. The exhibit opens on April 18th and opens one hour earlier than it did last year – taking advantage of the cooler temperatures in the morning during the hot summer. The exhibit was under construction during our training, but it was already obvious that Wings of Fancy is going to be as wonderful as it has been in past years.

As I walked out to the parking lot, I noticed that the skunk cabbage blooms are finished, and the green leaves are all around the bald cypress…which is still bald.

There were grackles all through the woods near the parking lot…making a lot of noise on the spring day. They use their whole body to make their call!

Backyard Walk – April 2018

We had some warmer days late last week and I walked around our backyard to photograph it’s status. The violets are blooming. Sometimes the scent of them wafts through the air. They like the areas where there is lots of leaf mulch.

The red maple has bloomed, and the samaras (seeds) are forming. Our tree is in further along that the one at Belmont; the microclimate where it is growing is warmer probably.

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Do you see the yellow haze under the trees in our forest? That’s spicebush. I think almost all the understory trees are that plant. The others have been killed so heavily browsed by the deer that they haven’t survived. I’m going to make an effort to inspect the spicebush this summer….hoping to find the caterpillars of the spicebush swallowtail butterflies. I am pleased that we have so many food plants for them.

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 14, 2018

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Solar Power Works in Many Places You Might Not Expect | CleanTechnica – Solar power is not just for sunny, hot areas! Sometimes assumptions we make early on about a technology are hard to overcome.

The secret world of babies – Techniques for improving our understanding of how baby’s develop their sense of the world…and some cute baby pictures.

How 'Bad Medicine' Dismisses and Misdiagnoses Women's Symptoms – Gender bias in medicine

Wild Birds of the Night – National Geographic -  Lot’s of owls in this group

Business Lessons from A Radical Industrialist (#CleanTechnica Occasional #Bookclub) | CleanTechnica – Ray Anderson’s carpet company set a goal back in the 1990s to have no net impact of the environment. They are on track to achieve that by 2020! As I looked at the summary in this blog post and took a look at the company website, I found myself wishing they made residential carpeting…not just industrial carpeting.

Sunset Crater Volcano and Capulin Volcano – I always enjoying seeing articles about places I’ve visited. I’ve been to Sunset Crater more recently (back in February 2015). Capulin Volcano was the first interesting stop along our route from the Dallas area (where we lived 35 years ago) and Colorado!

An Alternative to Burial and Cremation for Corpse Disposal | WIRED – Maybe there should be other options to cremation and burial….the ‘greener’ the better.

Six Ways to Help Bees and Beesponsible : The National Wildlife Federation -  Good ideas to add to your spring gardening.

How a Black Bear Wakes Up from a Long Winter’s Nap – Cool Green Science – Tis the season!

Pulling valuable metals from e-waste makes financial sense -- ScienceDaily – I hope it gets easier to get e-waste into a place that the value metals are extracted. In our community, it does not go in the regular recycle stream…it either is taken back to the store (traded in) or to a central collection point. We have a group of it now to load up and take.

Hurray for Spring Field Trips!

This week I volunteered for school field trips with the Howard County Conservancy – three mornings in a row. The first two were 5th graders at Belmont. I did two hikes with groups of about 10 students and their chaperone on both days. The school buses arrived on time and both groups wanted to head to the forest.

Along the way to stopped to see a pecan tree and a southern magnolia with lots of seed pods around its base. The students measured and described nuts, husks, pods and leaves…and then it we moved to the forest where we found millipedes and a tiny red mite. The spicebush was in bloom. It’s an understory tree so the students could take a close look at the flowers, see the stoma in the bark (white dots) and smell the ‘spice.’ They were thrilled that the trees are surviving in the forest behind Belmont…and that means there will be food for the swallowtail butterfly caterpillars as the days warm and the leaves emerge.

There was a bird in a high tree as we started the hike back from lunch. We thought it was a crow…and then it flew and ‘cawed’ to confirm.

As we waited to regroup in the field we compared seeds of sycamores and sweet gums…and picked out the sycamores in the distance along the drive into Belmont.

I took pictures of the lilacs planted in symmetrical plantings in front of the manor hour as I walked back to my car after the last hikes. The buds for the flowers were not numerous and I wondered if a recent frost had damaged them.

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The third field trip of the week was for 3rd graders and was at Mt. Pleasant Farm. The students arrived in school buses and the normal chaos ensued to divide into groups.

The topic was ‘habitats and home’ which is always a great topic for a hike but particularly in the spring. The hike included observing blue birds and tree swallows jockeying for the bird houses along the trail. My group stood on a little hillock to observe the action. The tree swallows seemed to have staked a claim but weren’t building their nest there yet.

I completely missed the wood frog orgy in the little pool in the Honor’s Garden this year. It evidently happened on some warm days we had back in February! There are a lot of tadpoles in the pool now and were part of the lesson for the students during the non-hiking part of the morning.

Three days – six hikes….Hurray for spring field trips!

In the Middle Patuxent River

Last weekend I participated in the quarterly water quality monitoring of the Middle Patuxent River at Robinson Nature Center. The temperature was in the mid-40s it felt warmer with the sun shining and the river level less breezy that the top of the nearby hills. We hiked down taking a short cut through the forest and crossed the river.

The crossing was a little tricky for those of is with boots (Me and several others) rather than waders but we made it across with only one person getting water in one of her boots. There is a whale-shaped rock that is a landmark for where the quarterly surveys take place.

We used D-nets and tubs to collect macroinvertebrates from leaf wads and riffles. The leaf wad my partner and I worked on had lots of little critters, a very large crane fly larvae and a frog. Everything went into the tub except the frog which we put back into the river (not a macroinvertebrate….and not easily contained anyway). After collecting for over an hour we headed back across the river to the lab with buckets to search through of macroinvertebrates to identify.

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Back in the lab we emptied the buckets into smaller plastic bins and started separating the macroinvertebrates into ice cube trays for identification. We were after diversity and numbers of macroinvertebrates, so we were sifting through everything very carefully. I used a macro lens attached to my cell phone camera to get a few pictures.

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There were a few things that were not macroinvertebrates but they were in the sample which were generally bigger than the macroinvertebrates and moved around a lot – a little distracting while we were searching. Several of us had salamanders (me included) and one person has some small fish!

Our team lead completed the form to submit for the monitoring session; the river scored about the same as the last sampling in January which is better than 85% of other Maryland water sources. Hurray for the river!