There is a creek under there. Can you imagine it? Sight unseen, continuously flowing and burbling toward Lake Erie. Which, by the way, is also frozen for the 2014-15 season. All the way to Canada. It is not often that the entire lake freezes, but it is a bit easier for Lake Erie to completely freeze, as it is the shallowest of the five Great Lakes. Due to February 2015 being the coldest February on record since the 1870s (average temperature of 13.1 F), the lake froze.
Is appears that Mill Creek did also, even though it is a coldwater stream. That didn't stop our weekly efforts to take our five water quality samples. It did, however, slow us down.
The creek bed is a little easier to spot in the photo above. I love the shadow of the hemlock on the snow. Even the shadow appears to have a tint of green.
Interesting comparison, isn't it? And the wildlife continues on, regardless of the weather.
We found that with a bit of effort, we were able to break though the ice down to the running stream to gather data. Each week, we gather data from five sites in the Park: pH, dissolved oxygen, water temperature, conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved solids, salinity, and resistivity. This week, on March 3rd, we actually recorded water temperature of -.1.
It's cold here in Erie.
Our wetlands on the east end of the Park. You can still see the creek meandering its way through the drifts of snow, headed west and north. We are finding, at this point, that much of the data is remaining consistent, with the exception of one point that shows a higher temperature than the other four sites. We will continue to monitor the sites weekly; keeping an eye on the data as we head into snowmelt and stormwater season. Will the runoff from the neighboring highway, Interstate 90, have an affect on the quality of the water this spring?
We were fascinated by this video.
Just stopping and observing what is happening around us makes all the difference.
This was best blog yet, loved it and the pics.
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