Watercress Creek Stream Assessment Narrative

On Saturday, October 30, 2010, I met three fellow certified Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy citizen scientists to conduct a benthic macroinvertebrate assessment of Watercress Creek located in the Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve.  For three of the four of us, it was the first time we had worked on an assessment for this location.

    The weather that day was gorgeous, sunny and breezy and in the mid 50’s.  It had rained a few days prior, but not enough to impact the assessment.

We gathered our equipment and loaded up the preserve’s golf cart and headed to the monitoring site.  Reaching the site, we set the equipment up stream side under a grove of Paw Paw trees.  Once the equipment was ready, we assessed the creek for acceptable riffle areas.  Watercress Creek is a stream unlike any I had monitored before; very shallow with slow moving water and few riffles.  I didn’t exactly have high hopes for our first netting sample.   That thought was quickly squelched as our first two nettings produced more than 200 macroinvertebrates.

October 2010 – score      9    Acceptable ecological conditions

  

Watercress Creek Watershed

The Watercress Creek watershed is a small, unique area of land located within Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve in central Loudoun County, Virginia.  Banshee Reeks is Loudoun County’s only county owned nature preserve consisting of 695 acres of forest, succession fields, ponds and streams.  The park is bordered partially by Goose Creek to the south and west and Woods Road to the north and east.  Watercress Creek is a tributary of Goose Creek.


Portions of the Watercress Creek watershed have been identified as a Mountain/Piedmont basic seepage swamp by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).  The DCR sponsors a Natural Heritage Program that in conjunction with NatureServe works to identify, protect and preserve Virginia’s plant, animal life, and ecosystems.  The swamp in the Watercress Creek watershed is an area of unique biodiversity that has been identified by this program and receives attention through inventory, protection and stewardship.  The swamp is located between the Twin Springs and Watercress Creek trails and can be easily accessed on foot .  You can view the location of the trail on the Banshee Reeks Trail Map.


Map of Banshee Reeks showing the park boundary as well as the watershed contained within.


Mountain/Piedmont basic seepage swamps are characterized as rare ecological communities which begin from underground spring seeps and drain an area underlain with various types of mafic rocks and include granite, limestone and calcareous shale.  Swamps that are identified as basic originate primarily from ground water sources, those that are identified as alkaline have a metamorphic base.  Over 30 seepage depressions caused by underground springs have been mapped along the final 1/2 mile section of the stream before it empties into Goose Creek.  The depressions, combined with natural flooding and erosion exposes a stream bed that has many rocks.  Another feature of the seepage depressions is the clearly visible “mass wasting” that erodes the riparian zones along the stream with horseshoe shaped depressions in the landscape exposing tree roots and rocks.  These areas vary in size and depth, but most are anywhere from 1 - 4 feet deep in a gradual sloping area from 10 - 30 feet across.

Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve Update

The following is an update from the newsletter, Banshee in Brief:

Woods Road 

VDOT contacted County staff to describe their methods for moving forward with the Woods Road relocation project. A meeting is being scheduled with VDOT staff and the Office of Transportation Services personnel to discuss a game plan.  

Controlled Deer Hunt

The County Board of Supervisors approved a “controlled” deer hunt on the Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve to take place in January 2011. Details and dates are being finalized.  The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries previously completed “Deer Herd Assessments” and determined that the deer herd at Banshee Reeks was in poor condition. The overabundance of deer had serious implications for the loss of native plants and habitat, but also the overall health of the deer. Hunting versus starvation or disease was the selected method to reduce the herd. In addition an increase in the number of ticks as well as an “explosion” of invasive plants may be linked to large deer populations. The hunt, along with future hunts, should help stabilize the deer herd and bring it back into balance with the food supply. We will need volunteers to help with the hunt in January.