Stream Ecology Field Work

As an intern at University of Notre Dame, I am privileged to opportunities I only dreamed were possible. Last Wednesday on the 28th, I lived out one of these dreams as a field ecologist, monitoring the water quality of streams and ditches throughout the farmland west of South Bend, Indiana. Enjoy the pictures.

The area around our was itself composed primarily of cornfields (and one particularly notable chicken house with giant fans on its external blowing chicken poop and flies all over our faces). Some of the streams running through these agricultural fields have been restructured. In the photo on the left, you are looking at the shelves that have been dug out and planted with grass.

This mimics a more natural stream bank and the grasses help absorb some of the excess nutrients and pollutants that run off the field's tile drains.
On the right is a picture of the ecologists I was working with. Closest, a conductivity meter is used to determine the conductivity and temperature of the water exiting the tile drains. Conductivity of the water is an indicator of the water's purity. Bellow, a Flowmate is used to record the discharge of the stream. By recording the depth and velocity of the water every 5 or 10 cm, the discharge of the stream as a whole is calculated.

Yes, as far as I can tell, all ecologists are very friendly people. Not to mention they apparently like to wear matching uniforms. I'm looking forward to the next field trip when I'm invited along.
Below is the evidence that I still become distracted when wildlife presents itself. This was a baby snapping turtle that I instantly fell in love with. There were a couple different species of frog, including leopard frogs, living in the streams that provided mild distractions. More intriguing were the small swimming mammals which I believe to be moles. Besides the baby snapping turtle a box turtle was found near a forest edge at the farthest reaches of one of our streams. Beautiful animal.