A species rich day

Went early to the Ocean to meet with Graham for our regular riverfly site monitor. The levels were down quite a bit since last month, and the flow was nowhere near as strong. So we were able to sample in most parts where we normally go. The sample looked immediately promising on tipping the net into the bucket – lots of things swimming about. And within a couple of minutes we already had mayfly, cased and caseless caddis. The two species I struggle with are blue-winged olives and stone clingers – they look very similar except the stone clingers are a bit squatter and the gills are on the side. Usually they are blue-winged though. The Blue-iwinged also have a rocking horse motion. But today we had loads of them literally clinging to stones in the sample tray. So it made ID much easier because once you have a couple of good examples, it’s easier to classify new ones. But either way, we had over ten of each. So overall, the score for the site was 11 – easily the largest we have ever…