Visiting the Vernal Pool

It was more like spring outside today than winter.  That is suppose to change tomorrow. In the mean time we made the best of the pleasant weather and took a trip to a nearby vernal pool to search for caddisfly cases to photograph for a magazine article we are writing for spring publication.  We found them and some fingernail clams; everything else was hiding under the leaf litter waiting for spring. While the water was ice cold we were not cold until the very end when our toes started feeling like they were frozen and when we took our waders off..brrr. The ice was about an inch thick in the middle of the pool.

caddisfly case=little bits of sticks and gravel that are "glued" together to form a home for a small aquatic insect larva.

 Leaves under the ice

 Fingernail clam