Can you spot the Crane Fly? It looks like a giant mosquito and is sometimes called a “mosquito hawk”. The females lay their eggs either underwater or on the surface near fresh water. The larvae can take a few months or up to five years to develop, pupate and emerge as adults. The Crane Fly larvae is just one of the macroinvertebrates that we find in the Little Falls Branch. Photo by Jane Gomes of a crane fly found in the Green Acres Habitat Restoration Project
Just missing the snow, our monitoring team was at the Little Falls Branch, Sunday January 14 for the winter monitoring of critters living on the rocks and leaves at the bottom of the creek. This benethic macroinvertebrate monitoring gives us a picture of the biological health of the creeks. By adding up the number and diversity of the organisms we find, we assign a BIBI score to the creek. Our creek consistently ranks in the Poor to Fair level.
Notes from Stream Team Leader Frank Sanford:
A BIG shout out to the "fabulous three" (Emily, Averill and Sally) who showed up for the winter monitoring yesterday. For the first time in a long time (at least two winters) we hit 100 macros! Also the number of Hydropsychidae (Common netspinners) was up and for the first time in my memory we had two genus of crane fly. With a 34 degree air temp, 40 degree water temp, and a 20 mph wind it was a labor of love from my hearty crew!
Aquatic sowbug. Photo by Kevin Meiser
Here are the numbers:
Aquatic worm -2
Planaria - 12
Asian clam - 1
Aquatic sowbug - 9
Chironomidae (midges) 17
Black flies - 27
Tipulidae (crane flies) Antocha - 3, Tipula-2
Common netspinner- 27
BIBI Score remains constant from season to season, year to year.
When the numbers are crunched, they yield a BIBI score of 2.0 (Poor to Fair). That’s good and bad news. The creek has pretty much remained in this range since we started monitoring in 2016.
Our Stream Monitoring project is done in partnership with Nature Forward. To see past results and learn more about what we do, visit HERE. Thank you always to our dedicated team members.