Diario de wardta

We went out to Dixie Plantation for the second time on March 14. The weather was great; it was a clear sky with a lot of sunshine. We went to a few of the same spots as the first time, but we did not take the long hike. Instead, we spent a little time at the first traps and made our way to the more swampy area. In the more swampy area, we wadded in the water, and the gnats were going crazy around us. After we spent our time in the swamp, we got into the vans and went to the other side of the road. While at Dixie we saw some of the same species as the last time but we also saw some new ones, probably due to the seasonal change. Some of these species were types of plants including Winged Elm, Black Willow, and Sweetleaf. I thought that it was interesting when a few people in the group tried eating the Sweetleaf. Some of the animals that we saw included green tree frogs, northern hemisphere crayfishes, amphibians. Also with the animals, we saw some fish including mummichog, ray-finned fish, eastern mosquitofish, mosquito fish, and bluegill. Overall we had an exciting day out at Dixie Plantation.

On April 4th we got to go out at the Grice Marine Lab. The weather was beautiful, it was sunny and not too hot there was also some wind when we got out to the island area. When we got to Grice, we put on our waders and stepped over some rocks and wadded out to the island that was exposed. When we got to the island, we took the net we had and trawled with it. It was fascinating to learn how to drag the net across the floor to catch the species in the water. We did not find anything exciting, and what we did catch I did not do the best at capturing a picture of it and identifying it on iNaturalist. The few things that I did the capture and was able to locate were the eastern mud snail, the cannonball jelly, and the Atlantic silverside. While we were out there, we also went along the shoreline and searched for sharks teeth. I found a lot of the shark's teeth but unfortunately did not take a picture of them to upload onto iNaturalist.

For the last trip, we took out the big DNR boat and cast the trowling net. It was a fantastic day for a boat ride. It was sunny, and the water was not too choppy. I got a lot of pictures of the species that we caught. We saw some Colorful Sea Whip, Spot Croakers, Atlantic Blue Crabs, Stripped Burrfish, a bunch of White Shrimp, some Ocellated Flounders, Searobins, Northern Puffers, Atlantic Horseshoe crabs (one female and one male), Hogchokers, Ray-finned Fishes, Portly Spider crab, Atlantic Silversides and an octopus. We also attracted some laughing gulls while trowling. I enjoyed learning about how the boat trowling worked and going through what we caught and learning about the different species. I would love to do this again in the future!