Spring is finally in the air…maybe?!
March 16, 2010
At the weekend I decided to take a long walk from home in Clitheroe off around Pendle and some of the neighbouring villages (including a brief stop in a country watering hole!). With the sun out it really did feel as though spring had finally arrived! To confirm this as I passed through Worston a fellow walker suggested I look into a small pond just up the road. Doing as suggested I then saw a pond “lifting” with frogs who certainly had a spring time urge! It was nice to see a small garden pond which was not overly manicured and really helping what are endangered amphibians.
Monday of last week was a normal Monday, Philip in progress reports and issue resolution. In the afternoon I spoke to Dr Tim Graham of the Wildlife trust who is formulating a BAP list of all the fish species of note in the Ribble Catchment. Although well informed there were two protected species not currently on the list, and a fair few other not so heavily protected species. I agreed to add all that we were aware of to the list, some location notes and levels of protection etc. The aim of the list is to help with conservation planning but also a resource to inform those planning on developing or doing other works around our water courses of some of the inhabitants that maybe of threat.
Tuesday I had a nice trip over to the Lune to spend a day going over diffuse pollution with Sarah Littlefield of the Lune Rivers Trust. It was in preperation for a weeks course at the end of April that aims to help Trust staff to advise farmers on good practice and improvements they can make to reduce diffuse pollution.
Wednesday I spent the morning on projects and preparation, and in the afternoon I spent a good 5 hours visiting proposed Hydro sites in the Ribble Catchment, to determine the location, type of structure they may be built on and what we can do. Needless to say my Barriers to migration list has now grown further!
Thursday I finalised my presentation that I was giving that evening to Clitheroe Anglers Association. After some pointers from my last few presentations I feel I now have a really good over view type presentation of what, why and how the Trust helps our rivers, and of course how people can help!! I hope that if you haven’t already been bored to death by one of my presentations that perhaps you’ll see this one in the near future.
Friday was a really good day of hard graft. At 10:00 myself and a band of volunteers from angling clubs the Forest of Bowland AONB and Burnley college set about planting 1,000 native deciduous trees on Boyces Brook at Ribchester. Despite a lunch time panic that we wouldn’t finish, by 4:30 all the trees were in and we had cleared the site. In a few years that spot will look fantastic! This will reduce diffuse pollution, providing shading and important cover for fish species. I can’t thank our volunteers enough for their efforts and hope that if you couldn’t make it perhaps on our next day out you might be able to come along!
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