TheBanyanTree: Flower Moon -2016 - The Ivory Bill

[Dale Parish]

Flower Moon – 2016

 

The Neches River’s still too high.  The additional rains we had last week have the river at the very top of its normal bank—low areas are flooded.  When we take the Ivory Bill—our floating classroom—out for class field trips, we have to reverse the ramp because the deck is higher than the dock.  The extra swift current makes docking a little more trying, but so far, our captains have all been up to it, which, as a deck hand (they call us 1st mate, but in the true merchant marine, that requires a license that I’m not seeking), I can appreciate the extra care that has to be taken to keep the vessel straight in the current parallel to the docks.

As we left the Neches River for Ten Mile Bayou, where we conduct benthic studies and ecology field exercises, we put out the plankton net.  Our conservation interpreter—Kathy—had brought Mike, her husband, as mate because they are making some curriculum changes and training a new interpreter, and Mike knows just how she wants the equipment set up.  It was my first voyage with her, so I got to handle docking and utility jobs while he supervised.  The plankton net, which is like a small sea anchor with a collector bottle on the end, has only a five meter rope with which to drag it, and care must be taken to keep it away from the propellers.  I didn’t like the arrangement, so go a boat hook and secured the end of the trap line to the end of the boat hook.  There was nothing to brace on, though, and the drag of the trap out on the end of the boat hook was too much to hold comfortably, so we used the stern tag line to make a loop and I propped up against it in the rear bench and dipped it down so that the plankton trap was under water a safe distance from the props.  In Ten Mile Bayou, we only idle along, so the drag was tolerable.  About half way to our destination, we pulled it in and emptied the bottle into a half-dozen hand microscopes—each viewer was loaded with both phytoplankton and zooplankton.  Mike was very pleased.


We were lucky this morning. Our 09:30 class was the first one up Ten Mile Bayou, and we saw a lot of wildlife.  If the fishermen get up the bayou ahead of us, the chances of seeing much are slim.  This morning, there were plenty of water foul and turtles and two alligators—one sunning on a log, and the other, a larger bull—came out to check us out for intruding into his territory.  We let us get within a few meters of him before he decided to ease out of the channel.  The kids were impressed, although this class was from Bridge City High School, and alligators in front yards are a frequent problem there, and several of the students were much less excited by the gators.


We set up the microscope and flat-screen monitor up on a table amidships and got it all working together.  Sometimes, the microscope doesn’t transmit to the flat-screen until selected swear words are offered to it in a low tone that can’t be heard by the students.  Only one such offering was needed this morning.

After tying up at our usual destination, Mike and I retrieved the benthic net and the specimen trays.  We had gone off and left one of the lab bags that contained the lot of suction pipettes for pulling the small organisms from the catch trays into the microscope sample trays, but we found one in another lab bag.  We made several drags on the bottom pulling up mud and organics and washing the samples out to leave tiny, barely visible organisms, but try as we did, we found no post-larval shrimp, although we did find two tiny crawfish, one about two millimeters long and the other about five millimeters long—almost long enough to climb out of the hemispherical microscope liquid trays. 

Kathy had been lecturing about the benthic health of the bayou, and while Mike and I were preparing the samples, she conducted water sample testing with the class, showing them how to test for pH and conducting the infamous salt-water intrusion experiment.  First, a four liter jug with a million yellow plastic beads about a quarter-millimeter in diameter and one black bead is given to a student, and the group is assigned to roll the jug until they find the black bead to get an idea of what one part per million is like.  Then, she produces the bifurcated test tank with a separation between each side and two valves between the two sides—one top and one bottom.  A saline solution of 30 parts per million is mixed and food dye is added to the saline solution, and both valves are closed.  Then clear fresh water brought from shore is poured into one side of the tank and the colored saline solution into the other.  The students are asked why the two solutions don’t mix.  Then the bottom valve is opened slowly and a little colored solution can be seen easing into the bottom of the clear side.  When the top valve is opened, the salt water begins to displace the fresh water from the bottom up until the top of both sides of the tank is clear and the bottom of both sides are colored. 


 This lesson then becomes an explanation of why we have a salt water barrier in the Neches River just upstream from the mouth of Ten Mile Bayou.  The students were told while we were in the river that the river depth was 20-40 feet, varying on the cut bank side and the bar side.  They are then told that the elevation where we are is only about five or six feet above sea level, and then they are asked what they think would happen if the drinking water for the City of Beaumont is taken out of the Neches River (about 60% is), and the reason for the salt water barrier becomes clear, and the brackish water is explained.  The brackish water of the bayous and marshes off the Neches are the brood grounds for many species, as they will see.


 The students are then broken into two groups—the port group is given the sample trays to dig through and note the various benthic—or bottom dwelling—organisms that they can find, and these are displayed on the microscope’s flat-panel monitor so they can all see the details of each species as the environmental interpreter points them out.  The starboard  group is given the hand-microscopes with the plankton samples mounted, and are shown the difference between phytoplankton and zooplankton—locomotion.  The groups are switched and each gets the lesson the other group just received.


By now, it’s time to head back and exchange students.  Land-based activities were conducted at River Front Park, where the Ivory Bill departs, and the waterborne students are exchanged for the landlubbers. 


 It is surprising to me how many of these students have never been on a boat, much less up a bayou.  The students from Bridge City were well behaved and have much more exposure to boats, alligators and wildlife than some of the intercity school students we’ve taken on these trips.  Some of the intercity students have been terrified that snakes might drop out of the trees onto the boat—don’t know who feeds those rumors, but it didn’t help that one trip recently saw from fairly close up a very long water snake coiled around a dead cypress tree examining a woodpecker hole for babies. 


Two more classes tomorrow, two more Friday, and I’ll be done for the week.  Sure hope the water goes down by next week.


Hugs,

Dale

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Dale M. Parish

628 Parish RD

Orange TX 77632-0264