Updates from April 1, 2004

This poster shows a mink, but when I made up the poster I thought it was an otter. Now you know why I'm not a trapper. It was a pretty big mink.

A large mink swims around a trout stream in early spring.

A 4 inch brookie hides from the camera behind a rock under a cut bank.

There's one small brook trout running with this school of minnows at the head of a crystal clear spring.

There's a brook trout running with this school of creek chubs and common shiners at the head of a crystal clear spring.

This stickleback lost fear of the camera after I held it still long enough in the icy water.

A small creek chub hides behind a rock under a cut bank.

There's a brook trout running with this school of creek chubs and common shiners at the head of a crystal clear spring.

Here a stickleback investigates a little piece of grass in the slack water of a beaver pond on a remote stream rumored to have been great for brook trout at one time. It's now a swampy hellhole ruined by silt-trapping beaver dams, and I found no trout. Wading it in early April, when the ground was only half-frozen, was a nightmare.

A couple tiny aquatic mites are clinging to this rock.

In this picture: Arthropod Order Acari (Mites).

The fresh spring water here is so clear it's hard to believe it's an underwater picture at all.