Aaron's blog

The beginning of the expedition into the Oxbow pond started out with everyone getting into some chest waders. Once they got into the pond the people going into the pond brought back water to go into the tub. Afterwards they used the butterfly nets to retrieve leaves and debris from the edge of the pond. The leaves were used to retrieve the invertebrates by scrubbing them. In the Oxbow pond my group got a water boatman, tadpole, and a fish, we only found 1 invertebrate the water boatman. Our group was the only one that caught a water boatman out of the class. The water boatman doesn’t say much about the water quality in the Oxbow pond as they are a species tolerant to pollution. The pond is relatively diverse as there were many different species of vertebrates and invertebrates. Since our group only had 1 invertebrate we didn’t get to see as many as the other groups, since the other groups had much more invertebrates. The recorded water quality index of the Oxbow pond was 80.2. This rating was from another class. I ended up not going into the Oxbow pond but the Oxbow pond was surrounded by plant life. The trees were separated by the pond but still close together. The pond water also was not as clear as the river water. While some people went into the pond people on land took the air temperature while those in the water took the water temperature. We took the temperatures using glass thermometers. A smaller group of people went into the Oxbow pond compared to the amount of people going into the Coquitlam river. The pond was substantially smaller than the river but had more invertebrates.

For the Coquitlam river the water quality index rating was 87.2. It was much more challenging to find invertebrates in the Coquitlam river. The procedure to find the invertebrates was to use a butterfly net underwater and scrub the rocks from the bottom of the river in front of the net. Either this method wasn’t very successful due to the equipment or location, or the river had a minimal amount of invertebrates. We did not find any living invertebrates.  Both of the water qualities are considered good quality. For both of the expeditions a bamboo butterfly net was used in combination with a bucket for the water and a tub to store the water and invertebrates. The first time I used the chest waders was when I went into the Coquitlam river. The current was pretty strong so our class was forced to stay close to the sides. My job was to hold the butterfly net underwater and support the sides of the net with my legs. The experience was mostly anti climatic and what you would expect. Afterwards I got out of the river and we went into the sun to looks for invertebrates. For all of the groups it was much harder to find invertebrates. The Coquitlam river is surrounded by trees. The trees are separated substantially by the river, the river bed is also made out of moderately sized rocks (roughly the size of a hand).