The day dawned very cool with snow flurries in the air. Despite this two paddle club members, John Gerty and John Walton, along with another Benzie Conservation Volunteer, Sheryl Andrews, showed up to wade into the Platte and collect macroinvertebrates.
We sampled at three sites; near Indian Hill and Deadstream Road, at Veteran's Park, and below the Reynold's Road bridge. To summarize, a score of 34 to 48 is good, a score above 48 is excellent:
- Indian Hill Rd. = 38.1, good
- Vereran's Park = 62.6, excellent
- Reynolds Rd. = 50.2, excellent
We did well, with both Johns quickly getting the hang of collecting technique so they evidently liked getting into the Platte, while Sheryl sorted through the samples. We not only collected a good quantity of specimens, ensuring accuracy in the analysis, but the number of macroinvertebrate families collected gave us a good picture of stream life so that between this and previous sampling events repeatability is assured. It was a great team to work with.
The only sour note was finding Zebra Mussels in the Reynolds Road sample. This indicates that Lake Ann is infested with these invasives. Anyway . . . Hey! do these waders make my butt look big?