Figure 1 – Algae on the pond, Assabet River Wildlife Refuge, April 18, 2016. (c) DE Wolf 2016.

A wonderful aspect of daily hikes into the woods at this time of year is that you get to slowly watch the spring and summer evolve. On Monday, I noticed for the first time that algae was starting to form. All it took was a branch acting like a little dam to still the ripples and the blue green algae appeared. In many Massachusetts sites this is a bit of a blight, and you see whole ponds choked with algae. What I noticed on this particular day were wonderful curving swirls of algae as if driven by a mysterious wave and I tried to capture these in Figure 1.

I was reminded of my days at Stuyvesant High School in Miss Moehle’s biology class, looking through the microscope at the flow of fluids through the tendonous arrays of chloroplasts in the spirogyra. Yes that was before it was a rock band. I read in amazement that these algae’s are ubiquitous and that there are some four hundred species worldwide.

Canon T2i with EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM lens at 100 mm, ISO 1600, Aperture Priority AE Mode, 1/1250th sec at f/9.0 with -1 exposure compensation