Puttering with Paddlefish (...and a stonefly nymph)

I grew up along the Mississippi: summers at Itasca, crossing in Minneapolis to get to Grandma's house, watching deer cross the frozen river by Fort Snelling. It's sometimes hard to remember that the river doesn't only belong to Minnesota. I think of it as the small stream up at the Headwaters, the lower edge of the frame of downtown Minneapolis, along the bluffs in Saint Paul, the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.

It's easy to forget what's in that water, and I decided to play with the silhouettes of some of the native animals of the Mississippi. On the left, a stonefly nymph, which does best in high water quality; on the right, paddlefish, whose open mouths are nearly twice the diameter of their bodies when they feed. The stonefly nymph was an experiment in getting a symmetrical animal just right.I'm delighted at the results of this particular puttering session.