Nature Journaling Tip #13: What is Living in Our Pond?

Water is in and all around us. We are mostly made of water. Even the air we breathe usually has some water in it and the ground beneath us contains water too. Without water, life on earth could not exist.

If you want to find wildlife, go where there is water - it's a wildlife magnet. I'm lucky to live in a place where ponds, streams, lakes and wetlands are plentiful. Near my office is a pond I love to explore, especially with kids. It's always full of surprises.

This morning I was curious about what animals I might find in the pond that are too small to see with the naked eye. I hoped to catch some of these animals by scooping up some algae (green "scum") along with the pond water and put it in a jar with a screw-top lid.

I used an eyedropper to remove some water and algae from the jar and put it under a stereomicroscope, which is a microscope that has two eyepieces and is used for looking at objects that are a bit too small to be seen with a magnifying lens.

Our pond has lots of algae and aquatic plants, so I expected to see lots of animals. I sure did. Right away I saw an insect or insect-like animal I could not identify. I sketched it in my journal and made notes about what I saw:

I think most of the animals I saw are called copepods; they are very small, less than one millimeter long, and have a single dark eyespot in front.

Sometimes I call our pond "Dragonfly Pond" because of all the dragonfly and damselfly nymphs we find. These insects lay their eggs on the water's surface, which hatch into nymphs that prey on other animals in the water. Eventually the nymphs mature and emerge from the water to fly around as the adult dragonflies and damselflies we are more familiar with. I had found small nymphs before today, but my water samples this morning contained the smallest nymphs I have ever seen - less than one millimeter in length. They must really be newly hatched:

My most exciting find was a hydra. Hydras are tiny animals that are usually "rooted" in place like a plant. They are actually freshwater relatives of sea anemones. Being stuck to one spot does not keep the hydra from getting food; it can really stretch and it has six arm-like tentacles that have stinging cells. I watched as a copepod swam too close. The hydra caught it in its tentacles and stuffed it into its "mouth". I expected to be able to see the prey animal inside the hydra because the hydra appeared to be transparent, but I could not:

Looking at tiny animals and sketching them is challenging. I had to keep looking at the animals as I was sketching to make sure I was right about the number of legs, shape of the head, length of antennae, and so on. Sometimes they did not hold still and even left so I had to look for them again. But it was fun and I was amazed at what I saw. Now I want to look for more creatures that make water their home.

Mark Baldwin is the Director of Education at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History (RTPI), a proud partner in National Environmental Education Week. Each year RTPI offers online workshops for educators interested in bringing nature journaling into the classroom. For more information visit www.rtpi.org.