Lab Notes

✶ May 19, 2026 ✶

Went on a hike, chased a goose, grabbed some samples - as one does.

New Hikes: The Witch and Hiking for Samples

I had the great opportunity of joining in weekly hike with my husband and our good friend this week. It was a beautiful park with a paved trail, an overall lovely day! I chose to use this chance to gather samples at two locations. One, at the end of the hike, which was a mostly-dired up creekbed at 4,856' elevation. The second sample was in a pond near the beginning of the trail where lots of geese, ducks, and humans frolic, this was at 4,570' elevation. It sounds backwards, but it's just how I did it. The idea was see how big of different there is - so, I present the findings!

Experiments: Swift 380T Microscope @ 400x & 1000x magnification

Organism	Observations	Photos
Upper Trail 4,856' Elevation Stagnant Water Vorticella convallaria	To be frank, the stagnant water didn't turn up much of anything fun or zany. I didn't even get any colonies forming on the nutrient-rich agar! The only thing I got was the gif you see - which, please mind the dust particles... I had no idea my camera lense was that bad until I looked at all the footage. From what I can tell, this is probably a vorticella, specifically a teleotroch, since I didn't see the attached stalk it uses for attachment. They can ditch the stalk when the environment deteriorates or their resources become scare - like a quickly drying creekbed! It was exhibiting quick, darting movement, so my guess is that it's attempting to find food. Other than this little protozoa, there isn't really anything of note that I found. The rest of the findings were masses of biofilm - which is quite boring this far into the blog, since it's been featured so much. I need to take a look at my microscope, too, since it's been acting up. Other than diligently cleaning it every time and keeping it protected, the objectives become foggy and lack focus a lot. Maybe it's just opperator error though.
Lower Trail 4,570' Elevation Inhabited Pond Water Escherichia coli	I never thought I would actually find it in the wild, despite how common it is. But here was got ourselves some fun E. coli! (Don't tell my husband I brought this in the house.) First, let's look at the obvious - a diplobacilli group of Gram-negative bacteria found in a pond consistently being used as a toilet for waterfowl. Yup, sounds like textbook E. coli to me. Not enough evidence? Take a gander at the nutrient agar in the first picture with the Upper Trail, those colonies are also textbook E. coli. So I'm actually pretty confident in my answer for the first time in months. E. coli is cool because it's something us human are FULL of in our digestive systems. It's super simple and rapidly grows, which made it common to study in school last semester. And it can survive just about anywhere, especially because it's a facultative anaerobe (both with and without oxygen)!

Organism

Observations

Photos

Upper Trail
4,856' Elevation
Stagnant Water

Vorticella convallaria

To be frank, the stagnant water didn't turn up much of anything fun or zany. I didn't even get any colonies forming on the nutrient-rich agar! The only thing I got was the gif you see - which, please mind the dust particles... I had no idea my camera lense was that bad until I looked at all the footage.

From what I can tell, this is probably a vorticella, specifically a teleotroch, since I didn't see the attached stalk it uses for attachment. They can ditch the stalk when the environment deteriorates or their resources become scare - like a quickly drying creekbed! It was exhibiting quick, darting movement, so my guess is that it's attempting to find food.

Other than this little protozoa, there isn't really anything of note that I found. The rest of the findings were masses of biofilm - which is quite boring this far into the blog, since it's been featured so much. I need to take a look at my microscope, too, since it's been acting up. Other than diligently cleaning it every time and keeping it protected, the objectives become foggy and lack focus a lot. Maybe it's just opperator error though.

Lower Trail
4,570' Elevation
Inhabited Pond Water

Escherichia coli

I never thought I would actually find it in the wild, despite how common it is. But here was got ourselves some fun E. coli! (Don't tell my husband I brought this in the house.)

First, let's look at the obvious - a diplobacilli group of Gram-negative bacteria found in a pond consistently being used as a toilet for waterfowl. Yup, sounds like textbook E. coli to me. Not enough evidence? Take a gander at the nutrient agar in the first picture with the Upper Trail, those colonies are also textbook E. coli. So I'm actually pretty confident in my answer for the first time in months.

E. coli is cool because it's something us human are FULL of in our digestive systems. It's super simple and rapidly grows, which made it common to study in school last semester. And it can survive just about anywhere, especially because it's a facultative anaerobe (both with and without oxygen)!

Location of sample

Water Locations: Stagnant Water & Pond Water