Our first e news letter
August 17, 2010
Well I am feeling a little worn out, projects are charging ahead, we’re planning next years and bidding for money, and at the same time I’m trying to do surveys and restore a house!
We have now completed all but three of our main barrier projects, and two of our habitat schemes. There is still some paperwork and tidying up to do but the work itself is done. Barrowford 3 should start on the 25th of this month and Hodder gauging weir before the end of the month. The other is the A59 road bridge which has people working on it as I type!
Much of this work and plenty of others is summed up in our first e-news letter:
We hope to do one of these a year as well as our usual newsletter.
The electro fishing goes well, however I’m being held up by low flows and high temperatures, the Dunsop yesterday was running at 19.2 degrees Celsius. The high temperature means low oxygen which can cause fish much stress if electro fished so we are going to have to wait until temperatures drop a little and water levels raise. What a difference from last year!
Yesterday I was witness to the full effect of the abstraction on the Whitendale, with good flows going into the abstraction point and nothing passing to the river channel below. But it was heartening to think that after the hard work of many organisations on the catchment that the flow alleviation scheme has now been given the full go ahead and work will soon start to make sure that there is always some water going down the river from the abstraction point. This will help not just fish but invertebrates, birds and otters (of which we found several spraints yesterday!).
Walkers passing us electro fishing yesterday were really excited by the fish and inverts, plus the signs of otters, it just goes to show the interest there is in rivers beyond those with direct interests like anglers!
I hope that our projects for next year on the Calder catchment (The Urban Rivers Enhancement Scheme or URES) get funded as we can bring wildlife and interest to people of the Calder catchment who probably haven’t seen such things on their doorsteps in many years. And when you can see the wildlife that rivers can support you can generate a new found respect for the environment, not just in the water but all around you… so cross you fingers!
TEST post
August 10, 2010
TEST POST
Website problems
August 6, 2010
Well I’m hoping that our website problems are now behind us. It was a strange and unexplainable problem WE had some regular website visitors unable to see the website, and other who could, then no one could, then we couldn’t access the website to make changes, and finally all the photos went missing. But after some work by a friend we managed to sort the problem. He suspected that someone had got access to the editing page and made some nasty changes to settings we didn’t know about. Anyway enough technical jargon…what have we been up to.
It has been absolutely manic, our projects are now well under way with only two weir projects remaining, and two habitat schemes. Things have moved at a real pace and we are very pleased with the outcome of everything so far. The electro fishing has made the weeks fly by. With over a 3rd of the sites now completed. The Calder is nearly finished with the surveys. Some really mixed results, with some places showing big declines and other some improvements, but the most interesting outcome were more salmon in the places where we had found them, and finding salmon in two more locations that previously they hadn’t been.
The lower Ribble (from Calder foot down) is now nearly completed, also with mixed results, some improvements and some disappointing declines, particularly Showely/Park Brook, where the salmon found for the last two years have vanished, and trout numbers also down. Water quality in the upper part of the catchment seems to be the main issue. Some surprising catches have occurred such as: Pike (we had not caught any in the previous 2 years), lots of Dace and lots of Chub. Our normal numbers of bullheads, stone loach and Minnows are present and it always amazes everyone who comes out with me just how much life there is even in the smallest of streams!
We have made a start on the upper Hodder with incredible densities of trout and salmon fry found, I hope the trend continues are we move down the river. It is quite daunting that I have not even started the upper Ribble and I have only 2 months to go!
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