Click to Enlarge Creeks are always changing.That makes exploring them more fun. Every day you can make new discoveries. Looking down a creek you can see sandbars, banks and the flood plain, where the water flows when it rises over the bank. Click to Enlarge Bleeding shiners (top left) and many other kinds of minnows feed on the insects and invertebrates that live among the rocks. Darters (top right) also patrol above the rocks.The best way to see the bottom,even in shallow water, is to use a mask and snorkel. Creek fish feed green herons and other animals, including humans, if we are lucky enough to catch some. Sneak down a creek and you may get a peek at an red-eared slider basking on a log. Click to Enlarge Creeks are great places to catch sunfish. Turn over some rocks in the bottom of a creek and you're bound to uncover crayfish.Watch those pincers!   A Peek at a Creek byJo Schaper photography by Jim Rathert Do you like getting wet and muddy? If so, creeks are for you! Creeks are usually the uppermost fingers of a river system. Some creeks may be little more than gullies or ditches that carry storm water after a rain. On the other hand, Huzzah and Courtois creeks in Crawford County, and Shoal Creek in Newton County, are as big as some of our rivers. Spring-fed creeks may be called "branches." Creeks that run together to form a larger stream may be known as "forks." An example is the Osage Fork of the Gasconade River. What we might call creeks here are often called brooks or "cricks" by people in the southern U.S. and gulches or washes out west. Water flows or seeps downhill. The area drained by a creek or river is called its watershed. Because creeks often drain hilly country, they can flood very fast when it rains. If the water is swirling thick and brown with foam on top, stay away. It's dangerous. Most of the time, creeks are small enough that you can explore them easily. Sometimes you can wade right down the middle. Some creeks are so short that you can walk their entire length. Taking a peek at a creek can be fascinating, and a lot of fun. Water makes creeks. The force of water shapes what you see. Some creeks start on the sides of hills. How steep the hill is and what sort of rock or soil it is made of determines how a creek looks. An Ozark creek is usually rocky and clear, but a creek in northern Missouri may be muddy because it mostly moves through soil. Many creeks have rock or gravel bottoms. The most common creek gravel is made of chert, sandstone and igneous (volcanic) rocks. Water scours rocks from the banks. As the rocks tumble downstream in fast current, they may break off bits from other rocks. The constant tumbling of rocks and the relentless force of water rounds the edges of the rocks. Sometimes the gravel looks brown. That's because iron in the rocks rusts from being underwater so long. Life depends on water, so it's no surprise that creeks harbor an amazing array of plants and animals. You can almost find a little bit of the whole world within a few feet of a creek. What, exactly, is a creek? Why should the name "creek" be used for a gully that's dry most of the year, and for a waterway big enough for people to canoe on? The reason for sometimes inaccurate names is that early settlers called things what they thought they were, and those names often stuck. In surveyor's terms, however, creeks, branches, runs and brooks are all considered small streams, while rivers are considered large streams. Some streams are called kills, a Dutch word for streams. A drain is a small dry stream or gully. A bottom is the land along the river. A watershed is the land drained by a stream. A ford is a shallow part of a stream where people often crossed. A shoal is also a shallow area of a stream.A fork is the meeting point of two streams. Creek banks are excellent places to look for tracks of birds, raccoons and deer. No creek would be complete without tadpoles and frogs, turtles and toads. If you find some animals to study, enjoy them, but remember that they live best where you found them. Rocks form a kind of armor for the stream bottom. The rocks also hide creek invertebrates like aquatic insects, snails and crawfish. These animals are food for creek fish like minnows, chubs, bass and bluegill. The fish, in turn, become food for birds and mammals. Trees along creeks act as cover for wildlife. They also hold soil in place and keep it from washing, or eroding, into a stream. Take away the trees, and the water will dig its channel wider, pulling in trees, bushes and anything else in the way. Sometimes, the banks will even collapse. Too much erosion is not good for the land, nor for creeks. Some kinds of trees are better able to survive alongside a creek. Willow and sycamore branches are limber enough to bend against the force of water in a flood. Silver maple and box elder trees survive in a different way. Their limbs are brittle and break off easily, so that the whole tree is not swept away. Watery wanders Water in a creek never travels in a straight line. You've probably watched water swirl down a sink drain. Water also goes round and round as it moves downstream. Sometimes you can spot eddies and backcurrents. Of course, if the water is only an inch deep, it looks like it goes straight. As water flows in a creek, it moves stones and soil downstream.A creek erodes its bank faster on the steeper side, especially during floods.Where the water slows down, it drops whatever it is carrying, forming riffles, sand and gravel bars and mud flats. The steepest bank is usually above the deepest water.This is good to know if you are wading! The low area near a creek is often called its flood plain. This is land that gets covered with water when the water rises over the creek's banks. Flood plains usually aren't good places to build homes because of the threat of floods. They often contain forests or thick brush. Flood plains are important to all sorts of wildlife, especially in urban areas. They provide them with places to hide from predators and people. The brushy strips along creeks also serve as a kind of protected corridor that animals use to travel without being seen. Creeks are sometimes neglected. During a flood, loose trash washes into creeks. Some people mistakenly think putting old cars or washing machines in a creek will help keep a creek bank from collapsing. Actually, they are just adding more trash. Luckily, many creeks are under the care of Stream Teams. These teams are groups of volunteers who pick up the trash and test the water to make sure it is safe for you to wade in, and for animals to live in. To find out more about Stream Teams, go to www.mdc.mo.gov/programs/strteam/. Ye Old Stone Skippers Wherever there are stones and water, people will try to skip stones. Skipping stone games date back to Greek and Roman times. The English game of skipping stones has long been called "ducks and drakes." The French call a similar game "ricochet." The first rule of skipping stones is not to throw them where they might hit people, animals or property. Flattish stones make the best skipping rocks. Find one that fits comfortably in your hand and crook your index finger around it. Throw at a low angle to make it skip more. Physicists have determined that the more spin you can put on a stone, the better it will skip. The world record for stone skipping, 38 skips,was filmed on the Blanco River in Texas in 1992.