I haven't been stopped by the heat (close to, or over 100 day after day), but it certainly limits where I can go and how long I can stay. I try to be done with my photography by 10:00AM, and the Rivanna River, because of its size, provides more opportunities for finding insects than the smaller streams to which I like to go.
So, this morning, it was back to the Rivanna to look for small minnow mayflies. I again found mainly H. curiosum and B. intercalaris nymphs (photos below). But I also found several of our summer spiny crawlers -- Serratella serratoides. I had seen a small one at Crofton on Monday, so I think I've already seen more this summer than I did all of last summer, and it's the first summer that I've seen some so colorful, so mature. While we see huge numbers of Ephemerella dorothea spiny crawlers throughout the spring, Serratella serratoides nymphs are few and far between. They are relatively intolerant for summer insects: 1.7 in the North Carolina tabulations. More photos.
1) The mature S. serratoides entangled with two immature nymphs.
2) And another shot of the mature nymph alone.
3) One of the small Serratella nymphs
4) Heterocloeon curiosum small minnow nymphs, both male and female, neither one fully mature.
5) And a so-so photo of two B. intercalaris nymphs -- I just couldn't get them to pose.
On July 4th I went to the Moormans in Sugar Hollow, then I stopped at the Doyles on the way home.
Both streams are extremely low, and in neither stream did I find exciting things to write about in a blog.
I did find, in both streams, some fairly mature Maccaffertium ithaca flatheaded mayflies. I took these photos at the Doyles.
I'll be anxious to see if these are showing up in large numbers at the Rapidan River. They provide good evening fishing for fly fishermen when they hatch out as the "Light Cahills".
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