Video about a school group exploring a cypress dome on a slough slog (10 min. with closed-captions).
- Credit/ Author:
- NPS video by Jennifer Brown
- Date created:
- 2010-07-30
Student: Look how warm this is…I love it.
Student: Oh, it is cold.
Ranger: Not bad, huh guys!?
Student: Oh, does it get deeper?
This is crazy.
Alright, so I would like to welcome you guys to the cypress slough.
What do you guys think so far?
It’s great…awesome…cold.
Cold, but amazing, right!?
This is your afternoon. We are going to let you guys explore.
There is a lot of amazing wildlife right here all around us.
And, we have given you guys the tools to really get in and explore this place.
Hunter, can I borrow your backpack real quick?
Student: Sure…
So, first, Hunter has his dip-net.
It is an excellent tool for finding all kinds of different fish, we have crustaceans, all kinds of cool stuff here.
So, inside of your backpacks, you have a guide to the things that you are going to find here in the slough.
On the first page, it has a bunch of the different fish that you guys are going to find.
Over here, all kinds of different aquatic life.
So, that is a good tool for you.
You also have another guide to the fish.
So, you guys, take your packs, go out and explore, and I will call you back in probably like a half-hour and we are going to look and discuss all the awesome things we found.
Wow!
Lets look at the mouth. OK, so it has got a huge sail dorsal-like fin.
His mouth looks yellow.
Blue scales…ahhh, I don’t see any.
So, that is probably a female flagfish…is what that is.
Student: And now, I am stuck. The boys have found a shrimp.
I can’t move, I am stuck!
My foot is, like, completely stuck.
What kind of fish is this one?
I think it is a crayfish…yeah, there are a couple of them.
Student: A snail…
We found a glass shrimp, but I am having trouble finding it.
Filmmaker: Why don’t you just, could you just tell me what it looks like?
It is a very small shrimp…
And, it is called a glass shrimp because you can see through it and you can see, like, its’ brain and everything.
Parent: Oh, the fish just ate it.
The fish ate it?
Yeeahh.
We lost it.
Yep, the fish ate it.
I don’t think he is going to fit..is the problem.
He looks like he is going to pinch me…go check him out. That is a big one.
Teacher: Crayfish!
Wow, you guys have quite the collection. That is awesome!
He went to go get it and he dropped it.
It was slippery.
What was it?
Slippery!
So, I would like to congratulate you guys right now for your very first slough slog.
You are now Glades men and Glades women.
So, give yourself a round of applause!
Very good job.
And, you guys were wonderful explorers today.
You found some amazing stuff.
So, I would like to go around the circle, first off, and have you guys show at least one of the things that you found today to the group.
So, would you guys like to go first?
And then, we got a bunch of little glass shrimp.
Yeah, this group got quite a few glass shrimp which are really amazing to see.
If we put the glass shrimp in that magnifying glass, we would be able to see right through their body.
One day, we found a mother with eggs inside of her belly…we could see all of her eggs.
Very amazing.
Alright, you guys did an amazing job.
They also got some Ramshorn snails and a water beetle.
Are we up to Jake and Chase’s group?
You said those were eggs right?
Yeah, as far as I could tell, those are eggs.
As you guys can tell, we are in the middle of the dry season and everything is drying down.
So, I want you to take a look at those trees.
What kind of trees are those again, guys?
These right here, these are Bald cypress trees.
These trees are pretty much completely covered with lichen.
So, also, if you guys take a look…do you have any idea what these plants are that are covering these trees?
Jake?
Airplant.
Airplant…excellent, also called bromeliads.
They are covering these trees.
Do you guys have any idea of where they might be getting their nutrients from?
Chase, do you know?
Ummm, do they get the nutrients from the air when it is on the tree?
Excellent, they are not taking any nutrients from the tree…they are just taking the nutrients from the air which is pretty cool.
Also, sometimes bugs will fall inside the airplants and they will start to decay.
That is another way that the airplants will get their nutrients…from those dead and decaying insects.
But, most of it does come from the air. All they use the trees for is really support.
Yeah, there is quite a few of them that are flowering right now.
Those flowers, when they turn to seed, the seeds are these really wispy things that will fly up into the air and they will just get stuck right up under a piece of bark on the cypress tree.
And, that is how they start to grow…they just start growing right there from that very spot.
So, I want you guys, before we go, I want you to take a good look around you.
What do you guys think?
This is a pretty amazing place, isn’t it!?
Yeah!!
You guys are probably ready to go.
So, I am going to ask you guys to dump out your aquariums and return what you found back to the marsh.
Ohhhhhhh!!!!
That was fun, I guess!
You guess!? What is not fun about it!?
I almost fell, almost.
I almost fell today, too.
Hey Adam, look at your right heel.
My what?
Your right heel.
What do I got on it?
Just some seaweed or whatever.
