Flow Analysis

Due to the storms this morning, in Brandon, IA, we were unable to collect our water samples for the day. However we did finish recording flow measurements this morning at County Home Road, next to the landfill. Kelsey and I got in the stream and found massive amounts of red wiggler worms along the shoreline. There were tons of worms some alive and some dead. A pound of Red Wiggler worms are able to consume a half pound of organic matter such as: paper, food scraps, egg shells, etc. The presence of the Red Wiggler worms was an ingenious idea, for every pound of waste processed by the worms, is one pound less for the landfill to process.

We stretched the measuring tape across the stream and measured the stream to be 47 feet wide. The water level was very low along the sides and there was a huge sandbar from 10ft. to 38ft. across the stream. We measured the water depth (inches) and the flow (ft/sec) at the marks of: 4ft, 8ft, 42ft, and 46ft. While untying the measuring tape I spotted a leopard frog hopping from rock to rock. The leopard frog is commonly found in the southern and western parts of Iowa. More details about the leopard frog are provided below, courtesy of Jeff LeClere, HerpNet.net.

The leopard frog is the most familiar frog in Iowa. They may grow to 3 1/2 inches body length. Plains leopard frogs are always brown or gray on top with round black spots scattered randomly about the back and on the sides and usually one   on the snout. These spots have a light outline. The belly is plain white. There are two light (sometimes golden) incomplete dorsolateral ridges down the back. These ridges are continuous nearly to the groin. Here they break and the very short remainder of the ridges are inset. There are spots on the forelimbs and tiger stripes or bars on the hind legs. these are dark, sometimes even greenish. The groin and thighs have a greenish (very rarely yellowish) wash. They differ from pickerel frogs by having round spots scattered randomly about the about the back, and a greenish wash on the thighs. Also          

Plains leopard frogs calling from Muscatine County, IA

pickerel frogs are found only in the trout streams of extreme eastern Iowa.