Say What? That is exactly what I said when a friend up the road called and asked if we wanted to help with a Rocky Bottom Sampling of Mira Creek. Mira Creek runs right thru our property so I was pretty interested. Come to find out it is a really cool activity that I am very glad I said yes too. The organization that houses and manages the data collected is called The Izaak Walton League. This League is part of the Save Our Streams (SOS) program teaches you how to check water quality in local creeks and streams. You can share your findings with the League, and this helps them get a clear picture of water quality across the country. This is the very first step in helping them come up with water quality solutions that work. They will also help you restore your stream to good health, if needed. This league was founded in 1922, with a Mission to conserve, restore, and promote the sustainable use and enjoyment of our natural resources, including soil, air, woods, waters, and wildlife. Their current priority clean water activities include engaging youth in the outdoors, cleaning up nonpoint source pollution, and halting the spread of invasive species. They are also involved in ensuring farm programs are linked to common-sense conservation practices that protect our soil and water quality, and they are busy Promoting clean and renewable energies that power our homes, businesses and cars.
So We met at the creek on Feb 25th. There were probably 10 folks that showed up. There were Master Naturalists, Master Wildlife Conservationists, Students and then there was ME! The location had already been scoped out and decided on before we met. I also found out that this exact spot gets monitored every year so any changes of the water quality can be accurately tracked. The first thing they did was setup their tables and accessories. There were nets , buckets, ice trys and papers with pictures of bugs, a couple of spray bottles, oh and several tweezers and a big magnifying lense.
A finely meshed net with poles on each side was used to collect the macroinvertebrates (critters) from the stream. This part of the creek had fast-moving water. The depth has to be 3 to 12 inches with cobble sized stones that range 2 to 10 inches, or larger. The net was placed in the creek, stretching the poles across and placing some rocks on the net down in the streambed , while someone was holding it. Another volunteer got into the creek 3 feet upstream from the net and stirred up the water with his feet. He picked up rocks and rubbed them off to force any critters downstream into the net. Now I Know there are special League technical terms for all of this, but this is my account of what happened 😊
This all transpired within 1 minute and the net was scooped out, bottom up first, so not to lose a single fly larvae. I didn’t know until now that there was a magic number of critters needed, to make this a valid test, and that was 200.
The net was brought and placed on the white table which made it much easier to see all the critters.
Any large ones that could crawl away were counted, logged and quickly returned to the water. This crayfish was happy to go back to the creek.
All the other insects were picked up with tweezers and placed in the ice trays that were filled with creek water. One tray had insects with legs and that were moving, and the other tray had larvae, worms, etc.
As each person would find a critter they would identify by calling out the name and quantity and a Lady would log it on the official critter form. They called out stoneflies, mayflies, midges, creek pennies, worms, crayfish, I don't know what all. I couldn't believe this whole net of critters was pulled up in a minute.
The spray bottles were used to spritz the nets because they dry out. This also causes the organisms to move, and you wouldn’t believe what was still laying there. Any organism that moves gets counted. I thought we were done 3 times and then they would spray and get way down close to the debris with a magnifying lens, and there would be more organisms! Amazing!
We ended up with 243 critters! The next day I received a copy of the Creek’s Multimetric Index Score and it was 12. The Acceptable Ecological Condition are 9-12. Last year on this same date 423 critters were collected and the Ecological Condition was an 11.
I am happy our little creek is in good shape! I wish I didn’t know exactly what all was in there. I like to sit in the creek in the summer. Now I am gonna need a chair, not a rock 😊
You can find all the information about this organization here at this website:
http://www.iwla.org/conservation/water/save-our-streams
You can download a critter sheet if you wanted to do this with your kids or grand kids. I'm thinking I will be doing this for sure with my nephew who Loves the creek. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our little Mira Creek.
Kimberly
Thank so much for letting us feature you and your eye opening post. ❤
You can find The Curation Report here;
https://steemit.com/helpie/@helpie/helpie-s-homesteading-curation-report-4-by-helpie-curator-llfarms
Thank you so much and what a wonderful surprise! I am tickled to death you enjoyed it and featured it hoping others would too. I appreciate you!
This must have been a really interesting event! I would have loved seeing all the critters pulled from the water. And your photos are wonderful! Another excellent post!
I was freaking out at all the critters. I had no idea there would be that many in such a quick dip! I am really glad you enjoyed and I appreciate your comments and reading my posts. Thank you so much!
This was really fun to read and see! I can't believe there were that many critters in a minute too.
So in a year, there was a drop in critters and your creek went up by 1 level? It's good that you guys got the thumbs up for a healthy creek but does this not mean that next year you might see it hit 13? Is there anything you guys can do?
This was very funny, you got a big smile from me there haha!
Great stuff and I'm glad to see you're getting stuck into the writing aspect of Steemit. Wonderful little post.
I stumbled onto this all because @svemirac dropped it into our BuddyUP server. Looking forward to seeing you in there at some point :)
The drop in the critters from over 400 in that spot down 200 plus made the ecosystem calculate out to be perfect. Anything way over or way under would make the index score go down, so we won't ever go above a perfect 12. The water test might be a different story with all the cattle on the farm next to us :( I sure appreciate you stopping by and leaving me a comment and I am REALLY happy I could bring a smile to your face. WOW, I guess someone liked my post to drop on the BuddyUp Server? I am flattered. Thanks again and have a great weekend.
muy interesante este post
Estoy tan feliz de que te haya gustado! ¡Gracias!
This is such a fascinating post! The pictures are great, the step by step detail is thorough, and it reminds me of being part of The Stream Team in my high school Biology class sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation. We are now living on a property with a natural stream which is also a runoff creek. The unfortunate part of that is we have a lot of "traditional" farmers around here, so all of their runoff makes it down to us, including any trash/debris. I'd love to rehab the creek when possible. Good news that your creek is in good shape! My favorite part of your post is the ending where you said:
Sucks your plan has to change, but you said it in such a funny way. { : Welcome to the community!
Thank you for such a wonderful reply! I am glad I could spark a good memory (I hope it was good). I ain't kiddin', I had no idea how many critters were in there and I 'used' to sit on rocks in the creek all the time. We counted a lot of swimmers in there that I didn't know about :) if you get my drift? I will definitely want to participate again. I will likely take the 4 hour class so I can be a listed volunteer, plus I will be able to call each of those critters by name. AND....I just found the most fascinating opportunity at a college an hour away. They are recruiting volunteers to log data about peep frogs. We have a lot of frogs here on our property in our creek, swamp and pond. They need you to commit to listening the same time(s) a day for the same length and log the different frogs you hear. I think that would be so cool! Anyway, I sure appreciate you reading my post and I do hope you enjoyed my little afternoon recap.
And yes I did love being part of the Missouri stream team. I almost applied for a semi paid volunteer position restoring rivers and creeks after highschool I loved it so much. Poison ivy is not my friend, tho, and I was working too many hours to be free to travel across the state. The biology lessons and field trips were some of my favorite activities in highschool. Another funny thing is how two years ago I was friended on that soical media website that shalln't be named by the founder of the stream team. Didn't know him but he was the original organizer. It's a small world sometimes, isn't it?
I have been looking at groups and classes in our surrounding area and I am really happy with opportunities. I need make some choices. Field trips were the best. Sounds like you have a little paradise. I love hearing the frogs, insects and the birds. It is a new, beautiful peace I am able to enjoy. Thanks for stopping by!
Sounds like so much fun!! Hopefully you bring us along for the journey of identifying frogs. Our septic lagoon and creek sound like frog paradise right now. Now you've got me wondering what all the different types are. It's that time of year where they loudly ribbet from sunset to sunrise. A lovely sound. It's funny because when we were looking to buy this property, part of what we fell in love with was the sound of the frogs!
That's really cool!!! I'm glad your creek is so healthy. We did something like this when I was a Girl Scout. It was really neat. I might try to do this with my kiddos just for fun this summer. We spend a lot of time on the Jacks Fork River. Thanks for sharing!
I completely enjoyed the experience. I know I would have loved it as a kid. I hope you get to do it with your Kiddos this summer. Thanks for stopping by!