The End (For Real this Time) of Columbia River Gorge Photography: Part IV

If you haven't had a chance to read Parts I, II and III yet, you can do so by clicking the links below.

Part I

Part II

Part III

The is the last installment of The End of Columbia River Gorge Photography series. Originally all part of one hastily posted smothering of photographs, I had to split the post into four because of formatting issues on my new blog.

This little baby rattlesnake was stunningly beautiful. I might have like him better if he wasn't so jumpy, though.

This picture will make any good naturalist hit the brakes; a baby rattlesnake crossing the road. 

  

He looks much more natural in the rocks and grass where he belongs. Just look at that cute baby face! What a little munchkin.

We went for an evening drive into the countryside and, besides, a baby rattlesnake, we had the joy of watching some courtship behaviour of the harriers. The female (seen above) is brown, but the male is grey. We saw him too, but he was busy handling some dead animal and dancing around her with it just to impress. I don't know that she was, but I certainly loved it.

This little guy couldn't believe his eyes, when those harriers started throwing the dead body of his neighbour around. 

Invasive wild horses dotted the road back home.

A wandering garter snake. Yes, it was a little awkward to get a good shot of this snake. After musking on my sweater, he wouldn't stop squirming.

Rivers in these arid regions always have a greenish tinge to the water. Must be all those minerals.

Be sure to click on this
photo of the cicada on the left. It's kind of hard to see so small. The other shot is of a pair of Canada geese. They must have some youngsters around somewhere. This spot (with the river, garter snake, cicada, flying geese, sparrow, and butterfly) was the last stop before we pretty much made a beeline for home. It was a nice place, but I felt like we were in too much of a hurry. Kind of like just getting a little taste.

This is one of my favourite photos. People were yelling, "Hurry up!" and I wish I could have waited to get a good shot of him singing.

A swallowtail butterfly heads off into the grass, marking the end of a great family trip. I just wish I had time to post on my trip to California. Oh, well. Maybe next year. Of course, by then, I'll have brand new stories to tell.

Places: Shatto Ditch, Indiana

June 24^th, 2014 – Shatto Ditch

You may have seen some of these photos in an earlier post about a specific trip I made back in June. Although you can't see the water in this early July photograph, the grass of the Two Stage Ditch is hard at work.

Above, the Shatto Ditch rushes through

buffer strip between two corn fields.

Bellow, the Two Stage system is more

obvious, with a defined dip into the

artificial flood plain.

A red pickup truck pulled off the farm road onto the grass on the buffer strip of a cornfield. The doors swing open and three stream ecologists deposit themselves into the tall grass and make their way to the back of the truck. It’s old hat now; I’ve made this trip several times and everyone drops into his or her perspective roles. Once we’ve got our hip waders on, our trio pulls out a bucket, pH meter, conductivity meter, SOND software meter, and a few other pieces of equipment.

Our purpose today is to monitor nutrient levels in the Shatto Ditch system of Indiana. The Shatto Ditch is special; it flows directly off the farmer’s fields and into the Tippecanoe River. The Tippecanoe, consequently, finishes its run at the Great Lakes—an important area for the fishing industry in both the United States and Canada. Whenever a farmer enriches his field with manure or fertilizers, the excess nutrients finds its way into the tile drains of the field. It is a system designed to keep the natural waters of the floodplain in the ditches. It works remarkably well and, where once was marshland, now grows agricultural bliss. Unfortunately, all that excess nutrients drains right into the Shatto Ditch and, subsequently, into the Tippecanoe River. Once the nutrients arrive at the Great Lakes, it accumulates at the mouth of the river. Spurred on by the bonanza, algae bloom excessively. Soon, alga grows on alga and the heterotrophs cannot keep up with the astounding rate of dead algae deposition. The amount of decay makes it impossible for fish and other ecologically important species to live. It creates a dead zone.

Fortunately, ecologists at the University of Notre Dame are looking for solutions. One possible solution that we are testing today is the Two Stage Ditch System. To attempt to remove the excess nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorous, from Shatto Ditch, we have constructed an artificial floodplain about 10 meters wide. It is well planted with grasses and other plants that are naturally competitive for nutrients. The hope is that these Two Stage Ditches will make a difference and limit the amount of nutrients before it reaches the Tippecanoe.

Another possibility is cover crop planting. Some farmers have complied to planting their fields with competitive grasses to help absorb some of the excess nutrients. Right now, it seems like the best solution is a combination of methods.

Here, the Shatto Ditch is measured for discharge, the rate at which water is flowing at a given depth. It is usually measured every 5 or 10 cm and the width of the ditch or stream is also recorded. In this case, a culvert offers a good gradient for this procedure. In front of the tape measure, an ecologist uses a Flo-Mate to make the readings.

Brittany Hanrahan (background) and
Martha Dee (foreground) are the two
Shatto experts at Notre Dame. It has
been a lot of fun working with them.

A conductivity meter is used to monitor

both the temperature and the

conductivity of the tile drain jutting

from the bank.

We took samples at about two-dozen sites, from both tile drains and the ditch itself. By comparing samples taken in the typical Shatto Ditch with those taken at a Two Stage and tile drains from fields implementing the cover crop system with those that do not, the differences will be considered to determine the effectiveness of the innovative plan.

Brittany and I at Shatto.

Turtles are my weakness. They

distract me from my work and I am

helpless to resist.

Sometimes fluctuations in water level, such as flooding after a storm, or other chemical changes caused by fertilizing or watering activities of farmers can give the impression that there are unnatural changes in stream nutrient levels. To watch for this, a variety of other conditions in the stream are also monitored. The pH is usually fairly high as an indicator of high nutrients. Conductivity (the ability of the stream to carry an electrical current) is also fairly high but rises when storms wash debris into the stream. 

The amount and rate of water flowing (discharge) is monitored at tile drains by measuring volume with time. In Shatto Ditch, the width is measured and flow and depth are measured at 5 to 10-centimeter increments with a Flo-Mate, a battery-operated meter, to determine discharge. Temperature is also taken which rises when water flows off sunbaked fields. In addition to all these manually taken samples, SONDs, software-operated water meters are replaced bi-weekly. They collect data 24-7 and can be taken back to the lab measuring any fluctuations in pH, temperature, conductivity, and nearly any other water quality that could be a significant indicator of changes.

I was very impressed by the orange sides of this common garter snake caught at Shatto. There must be a few of them out there because I also saw a red-winged blackbird fly off with one of these snakes. There isn't a lot of wildlife out at Shatto but I've seen leopard frogs, bullfrogs, green frogs, and gray treefrogs among amphibians. Birds include cranes, herons, red-tailed hawks, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, mallards, crows, and other songbirds.

All these measurements and samples will be analyzed back in the lab for significant correlations. When the day is done, we strip off our waders, sweaty and wet from leaks in the boots, and climb into the truck. Once everyone is in, we drive for the nearest Steak N’ Shake. It’s a Tank Lab tradition: ice cream for the way home. 

Places: Beaver Ridge Family Campground

For the 4th of July, many of the REU biology students (including myself) decided to go camping for the long weekend. Leaving Friday afternoon, we ventured to the campground where I did some exploring in the evening. At around 9, we left to see some fireworks.

The next day was spent primarily in Potato Creek State Park (stay tuned for more posts), but there was a surprising variety of wildlife at this farm country campground. Birds were plentiful. Some of the species I spotted were cuckoos, song sparrows, American crows, common grackles, red-winged blackbirds, yellow warblers, mourning doves, and gray catbirds, to name a few. The catbirds were particularly interesting, since they had a nest with young ones not far from where we had built a fire. I am always surprised by the simple insight of people who do not normally have an active interest in wildlife. One of the girls sitting around the fire noticed fairly quickly that the catbird sounded, well, like a cat. A young kitten, she specified, but a cat nonetheless. Of course, it suddenly became obvious to me that it did sound kind of like the mew of a cat, but I'd never really thought about it before that.

Mammals in the park were primarily noticed by sign alone. White-tailed deer and beavers, for example, left both tracks and chew marks (yes, dear leave "chew marks" when the bit the tops of tender plants). A rabbit in our site was affectionately dubbed "Paulo." Red squirrels scampered amid the pine trees near the trails. However, I think my favourite mammal encountered at Beaver Ridge were the coyotes. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, a coyote, somewhere far across the corn fields, began wailing at the hazy, moonlit sky. Not surprisingly, more joined in, yapping and howling for a minute or so. As they quieted down, only the green frogs "goinking" in the slough continued to communicate with one another. With coyotes and green frogs completing my outdoor experience for the day I drifted off to sleep.

Green frogs weren't the only amphibians encountered around the slough. I also heard the odd bullfrog. Around the edges of this slough in the evening, there were manny juvenile amphibians. Having metamorphosed from their tadpole form, wood frogs and American toads climbed the hills and spread out into the forest.
As for reptiles, I caught one eastern garter snake. However, it was a special moment. Once the snake calmed down, I was able to carry it over to the campsites and allow people to touch and hold the snake as they pleased. Thankfully the snake remained calm and it was much needed good publicity for a group of animals that have an unjust reputation.
There were plenty of harvestmen (arachnids) in the campground, some of which carried mites. The fireflies, unlike anything we get in the northwest, are truly magical. In forests at dusk, it is amazing to see the multitude of blinking lights. Amazing.

Of course, there were fireworks for the 4th of July. No the one above is not a horrible explosion amid a stupefied crowd. Wait... that's kind of what fireworks are. Beautiful, horrible explosions. It's actually quite difficult to get good photos of fireworks. All these were taken on manual and, with the exception of cropping, are unedited. I think they turned out pretty good. When I have access to the right resources, I'll put up the full stop-motion of the grand finale.

Sorry. Couldn't help but end on a natural note. The moon, even in its plain grey costume, seems to have a unique beauty that surpasses that of fireworks.

Stream Ecology Field Work

As an intern at University of Notre Dame, I am privileged to opportunities I only dreamed were possible. Last Wednesday on the 28th, I lived out one of these dreams as a field ecologist, monitoring the water quality of streams and ditches throughout the farmland west of South Bend, Indiana. Enjoy the pictures.

The area around our was itself composed primarily of cornfields (and one particularly notable chicken house with giant fans on its external blowing chicken poop and flies all over our faces). Some of the streams running through these agricultural fields have been restructured. In the photo on the left, you are looking at the shelves that have been dug out and planted with grass. This mimics a more natural stream bank and the grasses help absorb some of the excess nutrients and pollutants that run off the field's tile drains.
On the right is a picture of the ecologists I was working with. Closest, a conductivity meter is used to determine the conductivity and temperature of the water exiting the tile drains. Conductivity of the water is an indicator of the water's purity. Bellow, a Flowmate is used to record the discharge of the stream. By recording the depth and velocity of the water every 5 or 10 cm, the discharge of the stream as a whole is calculated.

Yes, as far as I can tell, all ecologists are wonderful people. Not to mention they apparently like to wear matching uniforms. I'm looking forward to the next field trip when I'm invited along.
Below is the evidence that I still become distracted when wildlife presents itself. This was a baby snapping turtle that I instantly fell in love with. There were a couple different species of frog, including leopard frogs, living in the streams that provided mild distractions. More intriguing were the small swimming mammals which I believe to be moles. Besides the baby snapping turtle a box turtle was found near a forest edge at the farthest reaches of one of our streams. Beautiful animal.