Current posts

Bacteria days are here again: results for June 15, 2017

Dear River and Watershed Friends, Good news: on our very first day of the season we not only had 100% sampling at 100% of our sites but the E. coli bacteria readings from yesterday are very low. None of the eleven samples taken yesterday, June 15, 2017, from the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee Rivers in Franklin to […]

Bug Nights 2017: it’s over

They stood hand-in-hand; arm-in-arm in the darkening and quiet laboratory. They stared at the door as the few bugs that remainined left the lab in their vials, safely snuggled in their plastic egg carton. “Are they really gone?” one Bug Night-er asked, “Will there be more?” The White Coats kept their gazes steady. Their faces […]

Bug Night #14: the big finish—do or die

I am going to miss her, thought the White Coat male. She had been a challenging identification. Eight hairy but shapely striped legs. An abdomen that just wouldn’t quit. She should have been an easy ID. Yet here they were, the two of them at the end of Bug Nights, finishing the last few and […]

Bug Night #13: unrequited ID

“Don’t pretend that we haven’t been intimate,” he said, “You have seen my palps, for heaven’s sake, no one has seen my palps like you have.” She was terrified. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The bugs were just supposed to be under the scope: small, legion, inert, dead. […]

Bug Night #11: don’t walk—run!

“How will we get them to come back to Bug Night?” asked the male White Coat, “I worry about losing momentum and interest after taking off last week for that conference presentation.” The male White Coat wrung his hands. The things he worried about, the female White Coat thought. She was busy counting chocolate bars […]

Bug Night #11 is next week—and a message for Franklinites

They seemed like an odd trio. One was nattily dressed and sported a neatly trimmed beard. One appeared to be a banker in a sharkskin suit and was clean shaven. The other sported a timeless, segmented exoskeleton and antennae. They clustered at the back door of the laboratory building, shading their eyes to peer in. […]

Bug Night #10: tough ID

We’ve all been there, he thought. A tough macroinvertebrate identification can pull you in and make you feel like you are drowning—except, this wasn’t happening in the St. Paul’s School laboratory. It was real. All that he could do was utter a guttural protest as the insect pushed him under for the third time. He […]