Sunday, July 21, 2024

Habitat Assessment and E. Coli Collection

Stick Pileups (?)

As I was walking upstream, I noticed a few areas with many sticks of varying sizes piled up in one area. My first thought was beaver dams, but another possibility could be that after a tree fell over the channel, sticks travelling downstream got caught by it, and over time so many sticks accumulated that it re-routed the water flow.

I also noticed this large pool formed by a fallen tree that seemed to be acting as a blockade for the flowing water. I haven't ever seen anything like this before, and I find it interesting how the stream just drops off, like it's on two different levels. This structure seems to have been there for some time, given that many rocks on the upper level have accumulated right to the fallen tree.

Birdsong (?)

Does anybody know what type of bird this is, or how I can identify it? It was making this high-pitched whistling sounds quite a few times.

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Field Notebook Entries

I saved sketching for the very end of my time at the stream. I spent much more time than I did yesterday sketching, and tomorrow I might challenge myself to get be less concerned about all the details.

I practiced mixing some colors and shading today. If I have time, I'll try adding water to this to see what it looks like.

On the back of this page, I added some notes, like: "Many ferns", or, "From this angle the stream looks like mostly rocks".

I enjoyed writing this in a sort of log style, taking note of what I've done, what questions I have, then also the data I collected. In a way, being able to write kept me company since I was doing this alone. Below is a typed summary of my results:

Water temperature: 62.2 °F or 17.1°C*

Water conductivity: 358 μS

Water pH: 7.0

*I took the °F and °C at different times, because I realized only after taking the °F measurement that the data sheet asks for the water's temperature in °C.

Habitat Assessment Data Sheet

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