Keith Williams

2 months ago | blog.nature.org | Keith Williams |Justine E Hausheer |Matthew Miller

The creek was up and it ran murky and hard. I didn’t expect to see much. It has been a summer of episodic heavy rains which tend to put a lot of mud in water and makes our streams run silty. I’m a freshwater snorkeler so I do what I always do: I stuck my face in anyway. I’ve been fooled by surface appearances before. There’s usually an amazing world just beneath the surface. The swift current tried to peel me from the bottom so I dug my fingers and toes further into the cobble.

Jan 6, 2025 | blog.nature.org | Keith Williams |Cara Byington |Justine E Hausheer |Matthew Miller

I peered at the Eight Mile River as I hiked upstream through the Pleasant Valley Preserve, 235 acres protected forever by the Nature Conservancy near Lyme, Connecticut. “Ugh. Tannin water,” I thought. Streams that flow through watersheds dominated by conifers often run tea stained. The color is caused by tannins, yellow/brown colored organic compounds that leach out of decomposing pine needles. It makes the underwater world of streams dark and imposing. But that wasn’t much of a deterrent.