- I think what lives in streams is kind of hidden until we look just a little bit more.

Oh.

When you pick up a little sample, you can see this incredible variety of adaptation to living in flowing water.

Oh, ho!

I got a crayfish in this one.

I've always liked insects, small things, and I like looking at the very fine detail.

This is a caddis fly that has made its case out of mostly little wooden bits.

When I was a little girl, I loved dinking around in the streams and in the forests.

I liked being able to identify what I was looking at.

It's just curiosity.

(gentle inspirational music) Oh, we got a good Heptagenia here!

So I had an interest in biology.

The high school counselor was incredulous that I wanted to take those classes, because they weren't for girls.

But I was determined and I said, "But this is what I really love."

So I persisted.

(gentle inspirational music continues) When you put that net in the water, there will be insects of many different sizes, ways of making their way around in the stream.

Some of them can crawl, some of them can't.

And there's so much variety that you never run out of things to look at or questions to ask.

Ah, a pupated dico.

I think a lot of biologists find a particular animal for which they have great passion.

Excellent, excellent.

Oh, look at him!

And I really like the caddis flies.

(gentle music) I think the caddis have got everybody beaten.

The process of going through metamorphosis and becoming terrestrial is incredible.

This is a larger caddis fly that has pupated.

It's stuck to the rock now, and it'll be that way maybe for a month or more.

It's just their entire life cycle that makes them so unique.

And there is so much to learn about what they do and how they do it.

(gentle inspirational music) And of course, one of the most remarkable things about caddis is the variety of their cases.

The thing that they've got going is that they have silk that they can use to build cases.

And they make more kinds of cases and retreats than any other insect group.

The diversity among them is remarkable.

The cases are protection and they camouflage them.

If you are made of little stones and you are crawling around on little rocks, it's not so easy to find you.

They're taking advantage of everything that's out there.

There are caddis that use leafy bits, sometimes even convert from stony cases to woody cases.

They're adapted to different situations.

There's the ones that are built to hang out in the flow and filter the little bits coming by.

One of the reasons we have very clear streams is that there are filtering animals.

(gentle inspirational music continues) And then there are others, their little rocky cases are ballast, so they can hang in the flow and they can crawl around and get out onto bedrock and eat the algae.

Then there's the ones that build nets to filter the food, beautifully constructed nets.

(water burbling) Then the next part's kind of funny.

They go into a stage where they're not growing, they're not eating, they're just hanging.

And then when it's time for them to really get ready, to emerge to the adult stage, then they build the cocoon and become a pupa.

And it takes about three weeks for them to grow all the parts that they'll need to be an adult.

So when the pupa is ready, it becomes an adult insect that can fly.

(gentle ethereal music) (birds chirping) Think about that.

They are moving from an aquatic environment and become terrestrial!

Flying around.

That is exciting!

As I was winding down my research, I thought that there was another audience out there that needed to learn about the science that we have.

And so I edited a couple of books that were for adults.

And there's a kingfisher like the one we saw.

But I had always had, I guess in the back of my mind, that it'd be fun to write a children's book that I would have liked as a child.

And show them how to ask questions, so that they can develop an answer to it.

We absolutely need fresh water.

And for our health, we need to understand these systems.

(gentle music) Sometimes it's hard to see what's right in front of our face, and everybody lives in a watershed, so there's a stream somewhere.

And if folks recognize that they can make a difference in what happens to the streams around them, it enriches our lives entirely.

(gentle inspirational music) And gives us many more tools to address questions and to enjoy life.

- Getting inspiration for your next adventure, it's kind of why you're here, right?

Well, you can support more of what we do on Oregon Field Guide and everything else you see on OPB, by going to opb.org/video and becoming a sustaining member.

(gentle inspirational music swells) (no audio)