Tuesday, June 20. Collecting trip to Kelley’s Island! After a nice nap on the Gib III, we arrived on Kelley’s Island. We first went to the quarry to collect bugs. Who knew collecting bugs can be so much fun? There was a kind of marshy area there and a lot of toad bugs (and real toads) was found. I found this really nice Tiger Swallowtail, but one of its tails was broken off. Oh well. That’s a new family for me. Dragonflies and non cabbage white butterflies were highly sought after. It’s kind of funny watching big football player Casey chasing after a monarch butterfly across the quarry. We spent a few hours there and it got kind of hot, but I had a lot of fun.
After the quarry, we had and lunch and then went along the beach catching sand insects and eventually we reached a pond stream thingy. I think it drains to the marsh in the quarry. Wow. There were a lot of tadpoles there. I mean a least a thousand. We were catching bugs along the shores of the pond/stream and then we finally waded into the water and went farther in collecting insects. We found a lot of water beetles, whirligigs, and backswimmers. There was also this one beautiful black and white dragonfly that seemed to take great delight in taunting all of us. It would fly down to net height and as hard as we try to catch it, it always flew away. And then it would come back and repeat it. That thing was smarter than we were.
After a couple hours of that, it was ice cream at Uncle Dik’s! I had the wedding cake and it was really good. I also bought a few little boxes of candy. I love candy. A few of us went catching insects in the field next to Uncle Dik’s, but I was too worn out to go catching. Then it was a 30-45 minute boat ride back to Gibraltar. I slept the whole way.
The evening came with a brief lecture about dichotomous keys which could be used to identify insects. It seems pretty straightforward until Chris said that it takes about an hour using a dichotomous key to identify an insect. So we went over the some of the orders and families that we are most likely to find and will also be on the quiz tomorrow. The rest of the evening consisted of pinning, identifying, and/or labeling our days catch. It got kind of rainy and Chris said that it was supposed to storm tomorrow. Because of that, he decided to cancel the plan for tomorrow, which was collecting in the Sandusky River. Swollen rivers are kind of dangerous. Today, I was pinning my insects until around 11, but I had so much fun today that I hardly mind all the work. I’ll be getting a break tomorrow, so it’s not as bad.
After the quarry, we had and lunch and then went along the beach catching sand insects and eventually we reached a pond stream thingy. I think it drains to the marsh in the quarry. Wow. There were a lot of tadpoles there. I mean a least a thousand. We were catching bugs along the shores of the pond/stream and then we finally waded into the water and went farther in collecting insects. We found a lot of water beetles, whirligigs, and backswimmers. There was also this one beautiful black and white dragonfly that seemed to take great delight in taunting all of us. It would fly down to net height and as hard as we try to catch it, it always flew away. And then it would come back and repeat it. That thing was smarter than we were.
After a couple hours of that, it was ice cream at Uncle Dik’s! I had the wedding cake and it was really good. I also bought a few little boxes of candy. I love candy. A few of us went catching insects in the field next to Uncle Dik’s, but I was too worn out to go catching. Then it was a 30-45 minute boat ride back to Gibraltar. I slept the whole way.
The evening came with a brief lecture about dichotomous keys which could be used to identify insects. It seems pretty straightforward until Chris said that it takes about an hour using a dichotomous key to identify an insect. So we went over the some of the orders and families that we are most likely to find and will also be on the quiz tomorrow. The rest of the evening consisted of pinning, identifying, and/or labeling our days catch. It got kind of rainy and Chris said that it was supposed to storm tomorrow. Because of that, he decided to cancel the plan for tomorrow, which was collecting in the Sandusky River. Swollen rivers are kind of dangerous. Today, I was pinning my insects until around 11, but I had so much fun today that I hardly mind all the work. I’ll be getting a break tomorrow, so it’s not as bad.
posted by Jennifer | 4:47 PM
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