Preparing for next years projects
November 29, 2010
Well although we still have 3 projects outstanding (hope to see completion in the next 2 – 3 weeks), last week involved an awful lot of preparation for 2011, that said it was also a week where we looked back over the last year as we reported to our members at our AGM, and met with EA colleagues.
Monday I spent most of the day with the Forest of Bowland AONB, who were holding the second Farm Environment Plan – planners (or FEPers for short) training day. In essence they were training interested parties in how to undertake Agri-environment scheme applications such as Higher level stewardship schemes. As well as myself there were presentation from the AONB, Natural England, and the RSPB. Each of us were raising awareness of our particular interests, with people who will eventually undertake FEP’s. What we hope this will lead to is habitat schemes being undertaken as part of Agri-Environment Schemes that would otherwise be missed. The reason being is that to the untrained eye streams of less than 2 metres in width are seen as ditches – in most instances. So after a presentation inside we then under took a field visit to look at some of our work and areas that need work on the Hodder. A useful day indeed!
Tuesday was one of my longest days in the office, or any office for that matter, of my life. An 8:30 start went right the way through to 22:30! I’m not kidding! The reason being is that I had to do a whole load of data analysis so that I could prepare my AGM report. Which I completed just as the first members arrived! A good evening was had by all, and generally I think people were amazed by just how much work we have done in the last 12 months! Although a good turn out was achieved, I would love to have seen a few more, but I have high hopes for next year!
Wednesday I had a slightly late start (I think it was deserved after such a long day on the Tuesday!), and I spent much of the day catching up on projects and trying to head to completion of a few more, as well as draw up our list for next year. It’s an optimistic list, mainly from a fund raising point of view, but we’ll give it a real good go! In the late afternoon, Dave Wilmot and myself headed upto Stock beck to look for any Redds on our new spawning gravel, although no definites could be confirmed, there looked to have been one trial redd dug on one of the gravel riffles. After that we headed to Swanside and failed to see any redds there, but it is early.
Thursday was a day in Lutra House, the local EA offices. I had meeting after meeting lined up from 10:00 till 16:00. First was a sit down with the Pollution team to look at our result and how we can highlight areas of interest, and also to report on activities of the year. It has to be said the EA pollution team are doing a cracking job. They are just a small team covering a big area but I was blown away by what they’ve done this year.
Next was Becky Mc Allister from Biodiversity (for the Calder Catchment) to go through our proposed project for next year. We both came away with a long to do list and a better schedule in place for the coming year. After Becky it was Amanda Lord-Knowles who is the Biodiversity officer for the Ribble and Hodder. The meeting was the same format as the one I had with Becky but also a bit more of a get to know each other session as Amanda has only recently taken post. It was a long day but a valuable one. On the way home I stopped at Mearley brook and finally found my first salmon redd of the season!
Friday I had a meeting at Barrowford 3 to discuss final detail of an interpretation panel and a fence, but also to check the final snags on the fish pass. I also worked on the a couple of projects for next year, and then a quick trip to Sawley to see if any salmon were about, but no luck. Fingers crossed for the coming weeks.
Repaying our volunteers
November 22, 2010
It’s been another manic week, and I doubt that will change for sometime. The highlight of the week though was our volunteer Invertebrate monitors evening. After the scheme running for 3 years and over 65 people trained it was about time we held something to say thank you but also to show our volunteers just what there work has been contributing to.
I spent a day going through data with Mike Horner and transposing it onto a map so that it gave a much clearer overview of the results. And then on Tuesday night 23 of us met a Gazegill organic farm at 19:00 and after a short intro and a refresher test (unannounced before hand!!) we had a buffet dinner. After a good fill we had an overview of the results collected in 2010 and it was amazing just what good data we have collected and how much it has highlighted in terms of both positives and negatives. I think even the volunteers were impressed! Following on from this Mike Horner gave us a look at the interesting trends and seasonal patterns some of the sites were showing us. We then had a discussion on the way forward and we were all in agreement that we at the trust need to more to feedback to the volunteers on their results. We are aiming to annually report back in the form of an evening get together, but also by providing volunteers with their own spreadsheet which will display the results in a clear and concise manner. And finally we plan to set up an online facility that will allow the volunteers to view online or using google earth the results of not just their own site but everyone else’s.
On Monday prior to this I met with Tim Graham from the Wildlife Trust to look at ways that we could collaboratively work, it was a long meeting as it turned out there was an awful lot we could work together on. Some ideas included volunteer monitoring for Water Voles and Otters – however we have a long way to go on this.
In the evening I met with the Friends of Barrowford park to discuss a viewing area for the fish pass and an interpretation panel. It was a good meeting and we hope that in the near future we’ll have a good site for visitors.
Wednesday I started in earnest on a project for next year! We have started the feasibility study for a fish pass on the river Don, and have now had a wiff of some funding to actually build the structure!
Thursday was more of the same and going out and making sure land owners were happy and getting agreements in place. I also had a chat with someone linked to the developments of the Lodges in Clitheroe. Which I hope will lead to some significant improvement projects for Mearly Brook and it’s tributaries.
Friday I met with Paul Bradley and team from Paul Bradley Associates who are ecological consultants about potential projects we could work on together (just like with the Wildlife Trust) and such a success was the meeting we are heading up to Cam Fell in a couple of weeks to start planning!
In the afternoon I was up to Montford to inspect works and look at perspective habitat projects, the site of a large brown trout searching out a possible mate was a fantastic way to finish a Friday.
I hope to see any of our members at our AGM on Tuesday so that you can get a full report on the last years work.
Getting back to normality…ish!
November 15, 2010
Well it has been some time since my last post, things have been just crazy around here over the last month. We had hoped the electro fishing would finish I could take a couple of weeks off and then get back into a routine. In reality this was a little optimistic, I did manage 3 days off, but our electro fishing continued longer than expected, and the amount of paper work and project work has gotten greater not less!
I have this morning looked at the electro fishing grades for the first time. My many thanks to Janet Lord for all her help in setting up a proper database for our electro fishing data, and also in getting the results back out from the database so I can start analysing the sites.
We completed 263 surveys, and increase of 20 on last year, which given our conditions in September is fantastic. The Calder and Hodder seem to have stayed much the same, but a noticeable decrease in the high grades for trout on the Ribble is apparent, I’ll have to look in more detail before I can start drawing any conclusions.
The Barrowford 3 fish pass was opened for “business” on Wednesday of last week, and looks fantastic, so hopefully we will see improvements in both trout and salmon grades starting from next year above here.
Our habitat scheme on Stock beck has been completed and we will be watching closely for any salmonid spawning on our new spawning gravels. The habitat works on Pendle Water and Easington are also well underway, and we hope to have them complete by the Middle of December.
As well as writing my report for the fish surveys, I am working on my report and presentation on the invertebrate sampling scheme run by the Volunteers, which we will be presenting to those who can attend on Wednesday night. It will hopefully be a good evening.
At the same time I am trying to write up a report on the Gayle and Cam beck surveys we did, with and aim to find a possible solution to the abysmal results we had from our fish and habitat surveys.
Just looking at my “to do list” (which I have on a white board in the office) I could go on and on telling you what we are getting on with, but I can collapse much of that into – preparing for next year – we have to get an early start on these projects as at present we are looking at 6 BIG projects and a host of smaller scale ones. I was hoping that it wouldn’t be until January that I had to start thinking about the next lot of projects but things just don’t work that way!
In the next 4 weeks I’ll be asking for volunteers to help with massive tree planting schemes we have coming up for Pendle and Easington habitat projects, so if you feel you can help and I don’t already have your email please let me know. It’s a great chance to see our rivers and work up close.
I’ve also managed to sneak in a few outtings to see where fish are upto, and other than an amazing visit to Sabden where we saw dozens of brown trout trying to ascend Victoria Mill Weir I’ve nothing amazing to report. I will try and get some photos from that trip up when I can make some time….
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