Day 222: Look into the clear waters of the Mashel River at Eatonville, and you may see evidence of the good work being done by the Nisqually Land Trust upstream. Caddisflies and their larvae are sensitive to pollutants. Their presence is an indicator of water quality.
We called them "periwinkles" when we were kids, not knowing that the term actually applies to a small snail. Possibly someone's parent was misinformed and thus the error was spread to my generation of friends as one of those things learned from peers. In any event, the correction to my lexicon didn't come until I was an adult, and I still use the word in the full knowledge that it's being misapplied. Thus it was that yesterday morning, I went "periwinkle hunting" in Smallwood Park.
Caddisflies are members of the order Trichoptera. There are many species, but all their larvae build cases from small stones and bits of vegetative matter such as this one. Some anchor themselves on rocks and twigs; others are unattached and do their hunting from their "mobile homes." They eat algae, rotting vegetation and even smaller insects. In turn, they are eaten by fish, both as larvae and as adults. The fish are then eaten by fly-fishermen, who know that a well-tied caddis will sucker even the most wary trout. The occasional fly-fisherman may be eaten by a bear, but not sufficiently often to include them in a description of the food chain.
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