Visits to the Castor River
Visits to Branches of the Castor River On 26 June 2020, 10h13, air temperature 24°C, sunny, Beaufort gentle breeze, we set out to check the three branches of the Castor River for Molluscs, and for whatever else. We'd found a nice variety of Unionid mussels at the Little Castor at Rte 400 last fall, and had a nice variety on the main Castor below Russell in 2000, so the upstream branches were a surprising disappointment – a strange mixture of clay and angular rocks, a long brushy way below their bridges. Beavers were conspicuous by their absence. The main Castor below the Russell weir was totally overwhelmed with the Viviperus Mystery Snails which had first showed up there in 2012, but we didn't find them in any of the upstream branches. Kilometrage for this trip was covered by our Ottawa Field Naturalists Club research grant. Quotes in italics are directly from the database narrative output from which this account is edited down. We were late for an appointment, so our o