Flowers and Fish

Spent the day photographing prairie flowers, visiting Mac's Riffle and doing a biotic survey for darters at Darby Creek.

The Darby Accord-10 year Anniversary

Andrew doing a program for the Darby Accord.

On the Darby, celebrating 10 years of the Darby Accord. Small River Sucker here, which demonstrates good water quality.           

                            

Photos from Mary Ellen O'Shaughnessy and The Nature Conservancy.

Spring Canoe Outing

Beautiful day on Little Darby! Even took a swim.      

                           

Ice Fishing Adventure

A trip to East Harbor on Lake Erie for an ice fishing adventure made for a fun Saturday on what otherwise would have turned out to be a pretty ho hum weekend.  Although we didn't catch a single fish we had a great time being outside and enjoying the company of our friends.

Making some holes in the ice

Setting the shanty up

 Tracy and Robin

Andrew and Tracy

 Me and Robin keeping warm

 Ice holes

The only fish I handled was this minnow  )-:

One of the assorted and sundry characters that came to visit us on the ice.

Done fishing and goofing off.

A quick trip to the Marblehead Lighthouse after fishing

On the way home the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my entire life.

Yeah right!

We've got history here!

Fish Survey

Too much goose poop and hot summers have progressively degraded the small lake in Slate Run Metro Park near our home. Although the surface of the lake is relatively open right now it will soon be covered with what is commonly referred to as "pond scum". This algal covering, encouraged by hot weather and nitrogen in the goose poo, hinders fishing, decreases oxygen levels, and contributes sediments which reduce the depth of the lake and cause a general imbalance in the ecosystem when they occur over a period of years.  Visitors to the park are complaining about the poor fishing conditions and after last night's survey I can personally attest to the fact that the lake is significantly not as productive as it was in the mid 90's when I participated in a previous study and when I, along with my co-workers, fished the lake to get specimens for a kid's program on fishing. Back in the old days one needed only to make a single cast and was practically assured a legal length large mouth bass.  The lake is catch and release for ages 16 and younger only. Last night a team comprised of my husband who is the forest ecologist, an aquatic ecologist, the park manager, an intern and myself (the photographer covering the outing for social media and the quarterly park magazine) did another fish survey by electrofishing for them. Electrofishing is scientific survey method used to sample fish populations to determine abundance, density, and species composition. This process results in no permanent harm to fish, which are returned to the lake after identifying, measuring and weighing. We got bass and bluegill and I netted on grass carp that was 27.5 in. and 11 pounds. I could barely hoist it into the boat. Overall we observed a giant turtle, a plethera of teeny tiny blue gill and only netted 5 largemouth bass, 30 medium sized blue gill,  and the aforementioned grass carp after 3 hours of combing the lake. It was a beautiful night to be out and about and enjoyable to participate in the survey.

 Buzzards Roost Lake

                                                             Waiting for the sun to set

 

I wandered around photographing (with their permission) visitors enjoying the park.

                                                           Discussing strategy

Bringing in the monster grass carp

                                                 Weighing and measuring

                                          Recording species data and length of fish