Winter will soon be here and I love winter. I am not one who hibernates when it gets cold. I actually love getting out and taking winter hikes. It is now time to change direction and work on other projects. I will brush up on my macroinvertebrate identification and work on finding a good bat roost for next spring as I am also monitoring bats. I will also find tasks that I can do for ODNR and FLOW for the winter months. Plus MAD Scientist has also been added to my volunteer activities. Check out the "video" tab and "gallery" tab above to see some of my finds for the summer.
As I said above, it is just changing gears for the winter months, The way I see it, outdoors is always open and nature is always moving. I plan to go out and check out the activities taking place at some of streams. Many animals are still out living life and hunting for food.
The sampling season went out with a bang because I found some macroinvertebrates that I have not seen all summer such as a large aquatic worm (4"), a horsefly larva (1.5") and a surplus of stonefly nymphs. So I am glad that my final sampling gave me some awesome finds.
If you look at the video, you will see that the water is moving pretty fast. I actually had to brace the net against myself when I first put it in the water as the water pushed back on the net.
I set up my work area on this small island in the river. Usually this area is under water. On the left I did two samples and it was about 12-18" deep in the riffles though there was a pool about 24" deep. The left side was also faster moving and is the area in above video. I did one sample on right side that was about 8" deep and slower moving water.
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