Wiley Cove Treasures in Zone 7

A beautiful day (7/16) and I borrowed an open kayak so that I didn’t have to fold my brand new slightly swollen knee inside a regular kayak’s tight cockpit. It worked and I took off. Wiley Cove was my first venture, and, along with water lilies, Pipeworts. Floating hearts, Watershields, Bladderworts and Filamentous algae, it was loaded with thin-leaf Pondweed, Native milfoil, Coon tail, Native naiad, its close lookalike Spiral Pondweed, Common water primrose, and Aquatic moss.  Also found a wandering red water mite. So random.

Proceeded out of that cove and headed for Dean’s Cove. Unfortunately, I choose to patrol at the time of day when the light was getting low on the horizon, and I could not finish patrolling the entire zone but just inside the cove, down by the bladderworts in grid 196, I did find a clump of Water Marigold and tried to pin it on the map. It did not land on the exact spot, but Gitch and I remarked that it was NE from a prominent tree stump just off the shore. Actually, it is right where you see we ended the patrol and headed home. More to come, need to finish patrolling the zone.

Notice the additional photo with just a sample of Coontail and, its lookalike, Water marigold, alongside a cross section of each one.

Sample tray from Wiley Cove

Water Marigold on right and Coontail on left, their cross sections above