Robin and Cicely are sisters who have been volunteering for SSI since 2013. They have been involved in almost all of SSI’s volunteer opportunities–from water quality monitoring to the bug lab to restoration.
Robin first began volunteering with SSI’s macroinvertebrate lab, and you can still find her there almost every Wednesday. Her interest in fly fishing led her to want to learn more about the invertebrates that she mimics with tied flies. “I like the challenge of being in the bug lab”, says Robin. “It takes a year or two to get confident with [identifying the bugs].” Robin also runs the Trout in the Classroom program through the local fly fishing club for several years.
I caught up with Cicely during one of our recent restoration workdays along lower Deer Creek, where we were planting native species along the riparian corridor. Cicely, like her sister, enjoys fly fishing, and believes that studying water quality and stream health are important. However, she’s not as interested as her sister in looking through a microscope, so you will usually find her monitoring, working in the water quality lab, or helping with restoration projects. She currently monitors sites 11 and 17 on Deer Creek every month.
We love having these two citizen scientists on our team!