Stream Monitoring on the NW Branch
January 8, 2011

Text and Photos by Anne Ambler (except where noted)

Snow and cold don't stop the Neighbors of the Northwest Branch stream monitoring team from their scheduled work on January 8, 2011, at their site a little south of the Old Randolph Road bridge over the Northwest Branch.

Braving the icy water, the team finishes up the collection phase
of benthic macroinvertebrate (bug larvae) monitoring.

Back across the frigid waters. Those waders may keep out the water, but not the cold.

Glenn Welch examines his catch.

A tiny tessellated darter, displayed on a very cold, wet hand, intended to keep its gills wet.

Now to poke through the collected water and see what else is there.
Something could be attached to a leaf.

Several larva have been deposited in the icecube trays, including two types of Caddisfly larva.

Here's a Caddisfly larva, Hydropsychidae family, commonly called a net-spinning caddisly, under the microscope. Those hairy looking things are actually gills.

And for variety, here's a Caddisfly larva of the family Philopotamidae, a Common Fingernet Caddisfly.

Photo by Glenn Welch

This midge larva kept slithering out of range, here just showing its rear end.
This is the larva of those little flies that hover above the water in summer.

But ah ha, here's the front end, with its hard nose.

And finally, here's a mystery fish. Can you name it?

So how is the Northwest Branch doing? Well, it needs help. The pH level is high just now and the density of invertebrates, the necessary bottom of the food chain, is low. But if efforts by NNWB and the county to reduce volume and volocity of polluted stormwater into the Northwest Branch are joined by watershed residents, its quality will improve so that ultimately the Northwest Branch will be a good place to go fishing!