What's in the cast net today?

The instructor's demo cast hauled in some menhaden. Or do you call them shad?

Ninth-graders used cast and seine nets during a Back to the Bay class to get a peek at what's below the water's surface.

On this warm October morning at Baytown Nature Center we mostly found menhaden, brown shrimp, comb jelly and old oyster shells covered in barnacles and hooked mussels.

But it's always fun to catch something.

A guy looking for bait fish wanted this catch. Sorry, dude, this is a catch-and-release class.

One group caught a 5-inch blue crab with their seine net.

But mostly they caught little brown shrimp and comb jelly.

Snakes like the pots pile

A harmless ribbon snake can still make be jump.

This is why you kick the pile of pots a couple times before pick up a stack for planting chores. The hope is that snakes and critters will leave their outposts. But sometimes they stick around.

The skin of a snake among the pots about ground level.

Pearl Crescent or Phaon Crescent butterflies?

Pearl Crescent is mostly orange and black,  They like asters.

One challenge for newbies (like me) on a butterfly count is distinguishing Pearl and Phaon Crescents on the fly. Their wingspan is only about an inch and half.

Veterans logging Saturday's count at Baytown Nature Center would see a flash of white and say: Phaon.

Phaon Crescent is orange and black with a cream band on the forewing. They like frogfruit.