The Shallow Water Project

This was a really fun one-hour visit, but with little to show for it. This is because I came with the endoscope only - no weight/balance apparatus, and no other cameras. Turns out, turtles don't linger for close-ups, and neither do fish. I'll go again sometime, better prepared.

Today I focused on macrophotography first, as the underwater camera was relatively uninteresting; my location was better suited for capturing images of the ever-moving duckweed and its inhabitants. Not until I aimed a camera at this undulating floor did I realize that many insects are scurrying across its surface. Here are a few samples (below): I brought a small water sample home to look at under the microscope. This was relatively uninteresting at first, too - until, that is, I discovered the shell of a dead insect in the water. I thought I could get a close-up view of its body parts and structures - and I did. But soon, I realized there was a lot more going on inside this almost invisible carcass. The results are shown below:

Recently walked around Glacier Lake in Jamesville, New York - part of Clark Reservation State Park. Stopped several times to see what's happening beneath the surface. Using a USB endoscope attached to my phone Using a repurposed radio antenna to place the weighted camera The results

May 9, 2023 was colder than I would have preferred, so I did not catch any fascinating videos of tiny underwater creatures. I did, however, briefly glance at some anthills near our cookout: And, since my endoscope was occupied watching a Cardinal nest back home, I tried getting a dramatic shot of the lakeshore with an ordinary webcam plugged into my phone. The camera was almost immediately ruined... But the results made it a worthy accident:

Panorama of Lake Ontario shoreline from Sterling Nature Center Location Information Today, we visited the Freshwater Forested/Shrub Wetland habitat, "Sterling Nature Center" (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service classification code : PSS1/EM1F). My objective was to gather underwater video and images using my phone and a waterproof endoscope. Once collected, I planned to gather interesting media here, as a kind of informal scientific log, and into a long-term video project that I will call "Shallow Water." The approximately 1 1/2 -acre site of our exploration, mapped using the "Wetland Mapper" tool National Wetlands Inventory (usgs.gov) If my Shallow Water film project serves a purpose, it may be to spread the fascination I have with what I discover and learn from these kinds of excursions. Currently, the projected release date for my finished "film" is Earth Day, 2024. I have chosen this because I imagine a positive by-product of my own fascination