Christie and I met at So Cove’s put-in on 8/26. We found the turbid water that was flowing in from Snow Brook (after the storm earlier in the week) was still making it difficult to see to the cove’s floor … although not quite as bad as 2 days ago.
What plants we could see were nothing unusual.
We moved through into Smith Cove but continued to have difficulty seeing the plants clearly along the south shore but reaching the northern shore of Smith Cove allowed Christie to see the “field” of Native Milfoil right off of the Smith’s dock. Spectacular.
We decided to cross over to the island on the west side of zone 11 in grids #417- 418 where I had stopped patrolling a few days ago. In grid #257, just north of the Mayo’s dock we found a Freshwater sponge but this time it has branches (!) We found two more, one further north on grid # 578 and another like it over by the cove just south of Boynton Island (grid # 665). According to Amy and further reading I just did Freshwater sponge can present either encrusted, digitated or branched. And we seem to have each of them in Conway Lake. Note that this organism is reported to reflect the clean quality of the lake’s water. Photo below.
Then Christie and I found different “blobs” of Orphrydium, looking very similar to those found last year. It is true that last year Amanda of the NHDES Cyanobacteria Dept. did find that the specimens we brought to her (and that we thought were Orphrydium) turned out to be Rivularia, a low toxic form of cyanobacteria. Not toxic enough to worry about. This year’s finds leaves us the choice of whether or not we drive the specimens down to her lab for microscopic analysis. Several weeks ago I posted a find of miniature Ophrydium blobs stuck on several Native Milfoils found in Wiley Cove (Zone 7, grid #1751.) Don and I reflected after finding that, and after discussions with Amy and Amanda, that we would hold out and see what happens later in the season.