How Far Do Hatches Travel?

[Wildbrowntrout]

The nearest creek to me is a mile away, and I just found what appears to be a sulphur on my screen door. Looks like a size 16 but I don't know how it got here. There is a puddle that comes from a small spring about 100 yards away from my house, so could it have come from there?

 

[PennKev]

Wildbrowntrout wrote:
The nearest creek to me is a mile away, and I just found what appears to be a sulphur on my screen door. Looks like a size 16 but I don't know how it got here. There is a puddle that comes from a small spring about 100 yards away from my house, so could it have come from there?

Both are possible sources. I live about a mile from the junction of a small river and a larger creek. I see caddis all the time and mayflies are not unusual, though not nearly as numerous or common.

Kev

 

[franklin]

In the spring when getting gas in areas near streams I'm interested in I often look in the spider webs that invariably are around the pumps, etc. I will often see stream born flies several miles from large streams and rivers where there are no other discernible bodies of water. I find this especially true near the Susquehanna.

If you think about it a mild wind can catch and scatter flies for some ways before they might get back to ground.

 

[Maurice]

If there is a perennial stream as far up as the original spring source or of the first order with the habitat for a species it is likely the same flys that are downstream in subsequent orders will inhabit them. Remember, that aquatic macros travel upstream after hatching to lay eggs to counter the effects of the behavioral drift that occurs distributing the species downstream. So it stands to reason that if there is water in their journey upstream, even if another tributary, they will likely lay eggs and inhabit that stream to some degree if conditions allow.

There are probably small, spring source headwater water streams closer to you than you think. Look at a topo map of your area and check for "V" shaped contours near your home. Likely near roads or sewer line routes which is where they put those infrastructure since the beginning of modern civilization.

 

[turkey]

I live approximately 2 miles from the Monongahela River (as the crow flies) and I have small mayflies on my door every year. As Maurice mentioned, there are springs that run off of my hill that provide constant flow and eventually find their way to the Mon. I was surprised to see Hex's on the gas pumps near my house however. I wonder if they flew all the way up from the river.

 

[JackM]

It is one thing to find one or several specimens miles away from a habitable waterway and a whole 'nuther to find a sufficient population that can breed and lay eggs in a habitable waterway. Females will lay eggs in the street if they can't find their way back to a habitable waterway. Those eggs do not survive.

-- Mr. Obvious

 

[CVangler]

I have seen some midges and mayflies(looked like sulphurs) last year in the Bass Pro shops parking lot in Harrisburg.

 

[JackM]

A poetry:

Born to flight today
need to find a mate
It's the only thing I seek
before I die.

I have wings
and I will fly
to the trees
or in the sky.

Something tells me I can go
up the stream or
who knows where?
There's no limit.

Except the limit of my health.

If I fail to mate
it is no deal
Someone else will
I am sure.

 

[JackM]

Did you ever sit or stand still near the stream and hear the birds snatching emergent aquatic insects? It is hard to fish then, but very much worth it.

 

[afishinado]

JackM wrote:
A poetry:

Born to flight today
need to find a mate
It's the only thing I seek
before I die.

I have wings
and I will fly
to the trees
or in the sky.

Something tells me I can go
up the stream or
who knows where?
There's no limit.

Except the limit of my health.

If I fail to mate
it is no deal
Someone else will
I am sure.

Hopefully your bunk buddies at the Jam don't read this!!! :-o

 

[JackM]

Dirty mind. I am writing about mayflies. They have, at most, 3 days to perpetuate the species.

 

[Wildbrowntrout]

As I read the posts, I remembered the drainage ditch that used to be in front of my house used to see midge hatches. It now runs underground with a storm grate near the end of my driveway. There is always water in it, I might have to check it out.

 

[pcray1231]

Worth noting that what Jack says about roads is true.

If, for instance, there is a blacktop bike trail running next to the stream, it is not at all unusual to see spinners amass above it and fall spent on it, caddis trying to "dip" into it, etc. I don't mean one here and there, I mean legitimate little swarms. They think it's water.

Which then makes you wonder how exactly a bug does recognize water vs. land. And how many such bugs, on their upstream flights, actually follow roads instead of water?

 

[NewSal]

pcray1231 wrote:
Worth noting that what Jack says about roads is true.

If, for instance, there is a blacktop bike trail running next to the stream, it is not at all unusual to see spinners amass above it and fall spent on it, caddis trying to "dip" into it, etc. I don't mean one here and there, I mean legitimate little swarms. They think it's water.

Which then makes you wonder how exactly a bug does recognize water vs. land. And how many such bugs, on their upstream flights, actually follow roads instead of water?

I witnessed this last week pcray-

Sulphers on the little Juniata, there is a section of stream that a abandoned road runs parallel to (I'm sure many know of where I am talking about). A legitimate swarm of spinners gathered over the road, over atleast a 100 yard section of the road was completely covered with swarming sulpher spinners. As I walked down the road every step I took a spooked up tons of egg carrying females that were actually on the blacktop itself, and along with that thousands were swarming in the air above the road. Very interesting. I wonder if this scenario effects the numbers for next years sulphers?

-and btw Im not exaggerating when I say thousands, it was strange walking through them all for sure

 

[albatross]

AFish wrote

Hopefully your bunk buddies at the Jam don't read this!!!

Oops! Too late.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

LOL. GG

 

[pcray1231]

I wonder if this scenario effects the numbers for next years sulphers?

I have my doubts. This has been happening for some time now, with stable bug populations. When you think of a mayfly's evolutionary tactics, they are a "swarm" type. Meaning individuals aren't adept at escaping predation, but there are so many as to overwhelm predators and ensure that "some" get the job done. And those few produce millions upon millions of eggs. Of those eggs, a very low % make it to adulthood, yet, because there were so many to begin with you're still left with quite a few.

It'd stand to reason that if a slightly lower % of eggs made it into the water because their parents laid them on a road, well, of the ones that do make it into the water, a slightly higher % survive.

Look at some of the epic spinner falls, of, for instance, hexes on the Allegheny or Susquehanna, even in very populated areas with plenty of roads nearby the rivers....

Anyway, regarding the question on how mayflies recognize water, I have read that they are initially attracted to white light. i.e. the moon or general sky glow at dusk. This helps them find open areas to do the mating dance. When they switch from dancing to egg laying, they follow the stream by following a line of reflected, polarized light specifically.

As such, a streetlight over a road, for instance, provides the white light under which they swarm. The reflection off the road will be polarized, like a stream surface. Hence masses of mayflies underneath streetlights, to the degree that plows may be needed after it's all done! Even absent the streetlights, though, a smooth surfaced road open to sky has the same "polarized line" effect as a stream. And even without streetlights, more females will oviposit and fall spent just below bridges, because the bridge shades the stream and interrupts the line of polarized light, and hence the upstream flight stops, and they lay the eggs there.

It's been proven that moon phase has a strong effect on emergence times of some mayflies. Though some species not as much, and those that are affected, it varies by species on what moon phase. I don't know of any studies in this regard locally, or on our species. It'd be interesting, though.

FWIW, there's a full moon on Saturday night, the 21st. Last year, jam time was close to a new moon.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

I'm wondering how many drunk hatches will be at the road side at the Jam?

And how far they traveled?

 

[franklin]

pcray1231 wrote:
Worth noting that what Jack says about roads is true.

If, for instance, there is a blacktop bike trail running next to the stream, it is not at all unusual to see spinners amass above it and fall spent on it, caddis trying to "dip" into it, etc. I don't mean one here and there, I mean legitimate little swarms. They think it's water.

Which then makes you wonder how exactly a bug does recognize water vs. land. And how many such bugs, on their upstream flights, actually follow roads instead of water?

I'd guess heat. At least for evening hatches.


Interesting article from 2014. Look at the radar image. Not all the bugs are from the Mississippi but most are and it covers quite a range.

 

[pcray1231]

I'd guess heat. At least for evening hatches.

Heat, i.e. water temperature, is the biggest thing regarding the timing of the hatch. First you need mature nymphs, so that's the total "temperature days", meaning over the entire year, not just during the season in which they hatch. Then, having that, water temperature offers a "trigger", so when it reaches X degrees the bugs that are mature start to hatch en masse.

That's why you typically have larger individuals within a species hatching first. Those nymphs were mature long before the trigger came. Later in the hatch, the limiting factor is the maturity of the nymphs, so they hatch as soon as they are able.

Diurnal cycles, and perhaps moon phase, weather (cloud cover), pressure, air temperature, are potentially important as well, most of which are harder to prove.

But heat apparently isn't how they navigate AFTER hatching. While mating, it's an attraction to light (at dusk, they come out of trees in the dark woods and hover over streams with an open canopy, where it's brighter). After mating, and it's time to locate the stream for egg laying, it's horizontally polarized light that attracts them. Starlight or moonlight off of a dark water surface will do it. But off of a dark smooth road surface will as well. And a streetlight over top a dark smooth road surface offers attraction at both stages.