Today was picture perfect for Gitch and me to patrol So Cove. We lingered and crisscrossed our way up zone 11’s east shore and its littoral plains as we moved from the put-in through Snow Brook Inlet and the 1st channel, into Smith Cove, and then to the top of Greely Cove (grid #260). At this point we chose to cross over to the west side of the lake (to grids #313 and 314,) patrolled either side of the small island, meandered down by Mayo’s dock (#307) and then ended at the bottom of the zone before reaching the channel that let us back to the put-in.
Water’s clarity was far improved from just a week ago when a storm had passed through here. Our native plant findings were not surprising although in the upper pocket of Greely cove we found a little over a dozen Rivularia blobs, some that were firm, colored a translucent green and kept their shape when held, and others that had lost their familiar firm shape and had broken down into strung out chunks with a lightly speckled translucent grey color. We also found several of the healthy light green blobs tucked along the shore right in the channel before reaching Smith Cove.
Another find: In contrast to what is expected when crossing over big areas of Filamentous algae at this time of the season (recognized as murky green/brown masses,) we saw wide spread patches of bright green Filamentous algae fanning out from where Greely Brook spills into the lake (grids #269 and 273.) See photo below.
We are wondering if that is worrisome.
