In the Middle Patuxent – Again
/Last week, I was in the Middle Patuxent River again for a couple of mornings – a little downstream from the MPEA location that I posted about yesterday. The biggest difference was more water! It was wide enough to make using a seine possible although the D-nets worked well for collecting macro invertebrates as well. I celebrated that my last group found a hellgrammite!
Another plus for the site – no scrambling over rocks to set up field tables and supplies for identifying the critters we caught. The access was down a steep bank with roots making reasonable stairs; no one had a problem getting down even in clunky river boots. And once the students were in the river…magic happened. Everyone participated!
The site was close enough to one of the schools that the students walked down. The path was a paved tail through forest along the river…with housing developments sometimes visible on both sides.
The little streams that feed into the river are showing the erosion caused by the impervious surface that reduces the area’s ability to soak up water before it gets to the river.
But the trees are tall, and the days were sunny and just cool enough to realize it was fall. Excellent weather to be in the river.
