A science lab at St. Paul’s School full of people analyzing river samples under microscopes after dark on a Wednesday evening. It can only mean one thing: Bug Nights are back in action.
The Upper Merrimack Monitoring Program’s free and fun series has begun for the 2017 season, and we stopped by the first one to see what it was all about.
The Upper Merrimack Monitoring Program – which, as you might imagine, monitors the upper portion of the Merrimack River – has been hosting Bug Nights since 1995, and there’s no sign of slowing down.
When we walked in, a dozen or so people were peering into their microscopes, poking around at their trays with thin instruments. They were picking through river debris and pulling out any bugs or other interesting items.
Volunteers went out in the summer and collected samples from 16 different locations, and now those samples were ready to look at.
I got to look into one of the scopes and it was wild to see so many different kinds of bugs under there – all of which look way scarier than they do at actual size.
The atmosphere was pretty relaxed – everyone worked at their own pace and chatted freely among themselves.
Each week is a little different but ultimately the same: you comb through some globs of river sediment and separate the bugs from the unremarkable debris. Then, once everything has been separated, it’s on to characterization – there’s a binder full of images and information about every bug that’s ever been found by the group since 1995.
Bug Nights are held in the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science at St. Paul’s School most Wednesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. Make sure to get there early, as the doors lock. For more info, call 796-2615 or go to MerrimackRiver.org.
