Today’s Wednesday, July 27, 2011—although this may have seemed to be deceptively normal day, it was decidedly not; this day contained the joyous occasion of six teens on an Earthwatch expedition trying out their stylish (that dark brown is very attractive) and “hot” hip waders. Luckily, with the help of all the beneficent adults watching over us (Ben, LeeAnn, Paige, and Kat), we were able to find our respective boot sizes and waders, as well as those wonderful bug jackets that prevented us from becoming bug bait. Afterwards, yes, this was all in the morning, we proceeded to try out our newly fitted gear. There some near full-body immersions, but luckily, the composite experiences were avoided. The feeling of striding around in the wetlands was strange and slightly disorienting because what sometimes looked shallow was actually much deeper; the same sort of principle seemed to govern the solid-looking areas of the wetland—sometimes they were steady, but other areas seemed to pull you right in. However, one could argue that all of this was irrelevant in the glorious face of the science we were being exposed to (not really). Seriously though, it was fascinating to be able to see the amount of life that existed in the areas that Ben showed us how to sample with a dip-net. This sort of vitality was persistent in many of the things we saw along the way, including the dense and springy vegetation, the variety of birds, the bugs, everything…It changes one’s perspective a bit to see how all this life is able to exist in such variable conditions. Constantly changing, the environment allows little leeway to the organisms that do not adapt with it. Compared to all that, biting bugs, and slipping just a bit in the water does not amount to much on our part. ;)
Blog post by Marianne Dang
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