Village of Brookfield "Meet The Creek" June 18, 2006

Once again, NANFA was asked to participate in the "Meet The Creek" event held in the Village of Brookfield. This event was held on Sunday, June 18 from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm at the Brookfield Kiwanis Park which borders Salt Creek.

NANFA members, Scott Davis, Bill Yard, Uland Thomas and Sajjad Lateef along with members of the Green Water Aquarists Society and the Chicago Killifish Association (George Fryk and others) sampled the section of Salt Creek. The fish and invertebrates collected were setup in a native fish display.

Given that this was the second year that we were participating in the event at around the same time of the year, it was instructive to see the changes in the stream and compare them to what we observed last year. The water was marginally better (at least, no more oil slicks were observed). It still was murky and showed the classic attributes of an urban stream. There were large pockets of Hydrogen Sulphide in the stream substrate which were disturbed when we collected. Fewer crayfish (mostly Rusty crayfish and also a single specimen of another crayfish) and more fish were collected this year, which is more indicative of better collecting tools than of stream quality.

We collected pretty much the same species as last year. However, this year we were able to take better pictures and several photographs are shown below. The only surprises were a single speciment of Orangespot Sunfish, juvenile Johnny darters and a White Sucker. A complete listing of fishes collected is below.