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Rocky fish ramps

May 8, 2012

It’s hard to believe that I’ve let a month slip by without a blog post, especially seeing this is meant to be the “quiet” gearing up month of the year.  Unfortunately we have just been so busy  preparing new projects, trying to secure funding and delivering on projects currently under way that I’ve not noticed the month fly past.

Last week saw me submit planning applications for fish easements on the River Brun (pre-barrage arrangement) and Stock Beck (our first rock ramp).  This is what has taken up a huge part of my time.  As despite being relatively simplistic projects they still require large amounts of preparation, from the Tree Surveys and Protection Plan, to the Environmental Impact Assessment, not to mention the flood risk modelling and design work!  But hopefully we will obtain permission and then deliver these projects shortly afterwards.

On Saturday we are holding an anglers workshop, at the Swan and Royal in Clitheroe.  We have a guest speaker from the Wildlife Trust, Kyle Young is returning to chair the workshop and deliver a presentation, and you know that I couldn’t help give a presentation myself!  There are several aims for the day; to look at what Anglers priorities for river restoration are, whether they agree with the data that is held by the EA and the Trust on the current state of our rivers, and what information they can provide to improve the assessment.  Also to look how anglers, angling clubs and others can help to bring about these restoration techniques.  To that end we are having a presentation on  how volunteers can survey rivers, how river restoration projects can be undertaken, and how we can deliver fish passage projects.  There will be a short presentation from the RFCA on how to tackle other problems that clubs are facing.  We have a relatively good turn out, but are hoping to see more individuals attend.  This is a real opportunity for anglers to not only see the improvements they want, but help ensure they occur.

We also have meetings with the Forestry commission planned this week.  We will be looking at where we can set up new joint projects to deliver woodland creation and riparian habitat improvements.  Which leads me nicely on to where we did this on Cam and Gayle beck we hope to continue to do more, as this woodland creation and riparian improvement is leading to another iconic species being helped… Black Grouse!  Incredibly not dissimilarly to salmon and trout they require a real mosaic of habitat, and on thing that is missing from the Ribble Head area is scrubby woodland, which we are trying to provide in bucket loads.  The recent excitement over black grouse came last week when Adrian Shepherd from the National Park emailed to say around 9 black grouse were “Lekking” in the Ribble Head area.  He then went one further and following a site visit on Friday, took me to see them.  An absolutely fantastic site, and really pleasing to know that our work has much wider benefits than just fish and rivers!

The URES project has lead to catchment appraisal tours, one on the Brun and the other on the Calder.  These were fantastically attended, and the feedback provided invaluable information for development of our project.   A video of the calder tour can be found on Youtube.  Speaking of videos of these tours, there is now more information on the Loud appraisal tour, and if you visit www.ribblelife.org.uk you can see this here.  We have more of these tours planned for the summer and if you are interested in having one in your area or attending one please visit the Ribble Life website.

The invasive species project is now starting to deliver practical work, with Giant Hogweed beign the first to get tackled!  There are Himalayan Balsam bashing events coming up soon, and so if you want to get involved contact admin@ribbletrust.com.

We are now involved in the Keeping Rivers Cool National Project, a project that seeks to aid in mitigating climate changes impact on water courses.   We hope to deliver a raft of riparian habitat and woodland creation projects through this.

Our salmon tagging project is now starting to gather data, and for an update, please visit the salmon tagging page on this website, for a blog update from Gareth.

We are also working on a Barrier prioritisation model , that we hope to make available to other Rivers Trusts.  This is linked to our work on the Darwen, in trying to figure out not just what work is feasible, but also what work should be done first.  As part of this model we want to gather ecological data, but ecological data that can be gathered by volunteers, as well as professionals.  For example electro fishing done by volunteers, or invertebrate sampling  through the River Fly Partnership.

We also have dates booked in for the Riverfly Partnership training this year.  We will be holding 2 days for volunteers to come and get trained.  These are 30th of June and 14th of July, if you or anyone else you know are interested in joining one of the UKs biggest volunteer invert monitoring programmes please get in touch with Catherine at admin@ribbletrust.com

Well as you can see we are fairly busy, and I could go on.  But I will leave you with news of spotting two otters on the Calder a week ago.  Given the size I would say mother and last years cub, but either way, it was a great site to see.

Another year roles by

April 2, 2012

Well Today is my 4 year anniversary of joining Ribble Trust.  It’s amazing what has happened in those four short years, we have grown as a trust in both types of work, area covered, and man power.  And I don’t just mean employees, we are now delivering massive amounts of volunteer work, on a scale that’s unprecedented at the trust.  In the last season we’ve put in over 7,000 trees, erected 10,000 metres of fencing and surveyed 500 fish sites, 36 otter spraint sites and 39 invertebrate sites (5 times!).  This has been possible down to our dedicated volunteers, we hope to build on this in the coming year – to see even more improvements to the river and pride installed in those volunteers who helped achieve it.  Also I’d like to thank farmhouse fare who have been providing some puddings to volunteers for helping out, these seem to be going down a storm, and I hope demand for puddings doesn’t out strip supply.

As a thank you to our invertebrate sampling volunteers we held a social evening last week, which was well attended, although there was still a lot of food left at the end (mainly down to the Old Post House Hotel’s generosity)!  After a presentation or two, and a refresher on the invertebrates we hope to see in the coming month we held a competition, who can correctly name the most invertebrates.  We had three people with 100% whose names were drawn from a hat, and Judy Opit was our winner of vouchers for a local supermarket!  This is vital work and we really value the input.  We have been successful in bidding for funding with the Environment Agency to run another course or two this year.  So if you are interested in joining our invertebrate monitoring programme, please get in touch with Catherine (admin@ribbletrust.com). It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and I hope that it will motivate the volunteers to keep going, and inspire more to join.

Our salmon tagging project is eking ever nearer, the delivery of equipment has occurred and now we are waiting on the EA to do some electrical testing ahead of installing the kit.  With this weeks, weather forecast it’s none to soon!

Our tree planting has now nearly ended with some more on Cam beck planned as soon as some paperwork comes through.  We have finished our work on Stock Beck and although we don’t want to wish the years away, can’t wait to see the fully grown trees, shading the river!  Subject to final paperwork and approval, we have been successful in some bids for funding to further our work on Stock Beck and Cam and Gayle Beck.  This news was well timed as I met with Manchester Anglers Association last week to discuss current and future habitat works on their water on Gayle Beck, and with their support we will now deliver a massively beneficial project for the whole of the Ribble.

We are now awaiting news on the rest of our grant bids to see what projects we will be taking forward this year.  It is a strange time, when we are working on projects funded, and have developed and secured consent to deliver more projects but are in limbo until funding is secured.  That said we aren’t resting on our laurels we are chasing up other possible projects!

I met with the Woodland Trust last week to look at our projects from last year and how we can work together this year.  Working with the Woodland Trust is a real pleasure, our passion for rivers is matched by their passion for woodland, and when you consider the benefits of putting this together it’s incredible what we can achieve.  For example woodland provides shading to keep water cool (this is particularly important for trout who are particularly sensitive to water temperature), stabilise banks (reducing diffuse pollution and creating pools), providing cover for fish, invert, birds and otters, reducing flooding (trees slow down over land flow of water and increase percolation), provide food for invertebrates (the autumn fall of leaves creates food for freshwater shrimp that are essential items diet items for fish and dippers).  So with all that in mind we are really looking forward to working together on projects this year.

I was excited to find otter spraints at a site previously devoid of evidence of otters in the mid-Ribble area last week.  The spraint was also very fresh which surprised me as it was on a very small stream a long way from the bigger water that one would expect otters to be hunting in at this time of year, but I’ve read that otters will range a surprising distance even in the course of just one night.

The week before last I undertook the invertebrate sampling programme on Mearley Brook with the Environment Agency.  This is our 4th year of the project and, what was fantastic to see was some significant improvements to the sites.  The EA have been conducting a pollution prevention campaign – targeted engagement visits to premises, providing advice and guidance on site management to avoid pollution.  These were on the back of the surveys, targeting areas highlighted as at risk of causing pollution.  These results showed that this campaign is working, however there are still serious problems around the Shaw Bridge area that need further investigation.

Hopefully most of you will be receiving our monthly volunteer day opportunities email, if not please contact Catherine, and she will forward a copy on.  We also hope to put a projects calendar on our website, showing when we plan to start work etc.  This will allow people to track our progress and also get more involved.

 

Trees trees everywhere!

March 21, 2012

Well my post slipped a bit, after being good at posting every fortnight, it’s now nearing 3 weeks, and as per my usual excuse it’s down to work load.  Well that and the lovely winter sickness bug I picked up last week!

Sometimes it feels hard to sum up what’s being going on at the trust, this usually happens in those weeks that delivery on the ground is either so big that getting it into a page or two seems to hard, or we are in a preparation period for the next round of work.  The last couple of weeks has been a mixture of the two!

Tree planting has been going on like crazy as the planting season draws to an close at the end of this month.  2000 trees have been planted up above Horton in Ribblesdale, 500+ at Easington and 800 near Settle.  I can’t wait for these trees to grow and create valuable riparian woodland, trouble is, that’s about 10 years away, and I certainly don’t want to wish the years away – at the moment I’m trying to figure out if we can get more hours in the day and days in the week!  We’ve also got tree planting on Stock Beck next Wednesday and Saturday, so if you’re free and can help out….get in touch!

As well as the tree planting there was a river clean up on the Calder, carried out in conjunction with Mitre Angling Club.  This was a trial for the URES project, seeing how we could work with stakeholders and add value by bringing other volunteers.  It was a successful trial with 20 volunteers turning up and 2 skips of rubbish being taken out of the river, instead of the usual 1!  Our thanks to Mitre Angling Club for organising much of the day, and thanks to the volunteers for getting their feet wet and hands dirty.  There is another clean up day planned for Sunday at Martholme, if you are interested in helping out please get in touch with Catherine (admin@ribbletrust.com) for details.

Work is now drawing to a close at Chipping, however as with most in river work additional improvements were identified that we hope to deliver in the summer.  I think it looks pretty good, and I’m excited to see what the electro fishing results will turn up in 2013, yes unfortunately it will be another year before we get the results as it the work was carried out after the end of the spawning season.

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Nearly finished works, that have improved passage through to the upper Chipping Catchment

We’ve now started our detailed planning and consent application process for 4 more fish easements, due to be delivered in the summer, at Easington, Bond Beck, Stock Beck and on the Brun.  Details will appear on our projects page soon.  We’ve several more projects of this nature lined up, but will need to wait and see how our funding applications get on.  We should get some news in April (fingers crossed).

We met with Manchester Anglers Association Council on Saturday to discuss the works carried out so far, and what we hope to carry out on Gayle beck in the next couple of weeks.  It was a great meeting and we hope to keep the momentum going as this really is top down ecological river restoration!

We’ve also organised an Angling Interest Workshop for May, this workshop will look at what existing evidence and data is held on the current state of the Ribble, what additional needs inclusion, and how working with angling interests we can address the problems.  This will be by invitation to Chairmen and Secretaries of Angling clubs (or their chosen representatives) and we have drawn up a list of clubs and interests we know of.  We’ll be working with the RFCA to make sure the list is as complete as possible, and if you haven’t heard from us in 3 weeks, get in touch.  We really see this as an opportunity for anglers to get involved in delivering improved rivers.

There are also lots of Catchment Appraisal Tours planned for the coming months, dates to be announced, but these offer the opportunity to walk a section of a local sub catchment with the trust and EA, to look at the issues we’ve identified, but also to capture other people’s issues, and concerns.  Keep an eye out on our website and the Ribble Life as well as the URES website.

With the trout season now underway we will be putting up a display board at Mitton for anglers to provide information for anglers using not just this beat, but any of the passport scheme beats.  I managed to sneak out for some trout fishing at the weekend on the Irwell, which after 5 hours finally rewarded me with a couple of nice fit fish!  Tightlines to anyone else going out fishing, and please have a go at our passport scheme beats!

 

Spring in the air?

March 5, 2012

Another Fortnight has passed, and I wonder where it went?  It’s been a very busy few weeks, on the 22nd of February we submitted for projects to the Catchment Restoration Fund; Colne Water Catchment Restoration Project, Diffusing the issue in rural Ribble, Limestone Ribble Restoration Project, and Reconnecting the Ribble – People, species and habitats.

A huge body of work went into these project plans (including my life blood – or so it felt!), and we hope to have some news on how successful (or not) the bids were in April.  They are holistic projects that will be addressing all issues of restoration from physical channel and connectivity, to drainage, pollution and stake holder engagement.  We have forged several strong partnerships through Ribble Life to create a means of delivering these projects, such as with the; RSPB, Woodland Trust, Forestry Commission, the Wild Trout Trust, the Ribble Fisheries Consultative Association, Durham University and many of the angling clubs and local community groups.  If successful we will be holding workshops in late May early June to bring input from all river stakeholders.

Following the submission I attended a National Catchment Restoration Seminar in Birmingham, based around the principle of working with water companies and “Upstream Thinking”.  This was a well-attended seminar, with many interesting presentations from the water companies, DEFRA, OFWAT, DWI, NE, and the NFU.  If really shows how partnering with all of the above delivery of cleaner and healthier rivers can be achieved for the benefit of the environment and for the water coming out of our taps.  The most interesting fact of the day for me is that degraded peat bogs actually give off something like 2.56 tonnes of CO2 per Hectare and restored functioning peat bogs sequester 6.67 tonnes of CO2 per hectare.  So our work on Blea moor is now sequestering a fair few tonnes of Carbon!

On the Thursday and Friday I attended the Northern Rivers Trust Conference in Penrith.  The first day was in relation to the River Improvement Fund that has been part funding much of the work we have been doing over the last 2 years (including Padiham, Barrowford, Brun and Calder Fish passes) and is part funding many of the projects in the coming year.  The second day involved information and training around the DEFRA pilots, including guidance and background information from DEFRA on what they would like to see as part of the pilots.  There are a total of 25 official pilots, 10 are being run by the EA (and we are a co-host in this pilot) and the other 15 by other organisations (including 6 by rivers trusts).  It was very informative and inspirational; the work on the Ripple project in Ireland was of particular interest.

Last week I was away for a couple of days making final preparations for my upcoming wedding!  It was nice to re-charge the batteries slightly!  On Friday I was back into the swing of things and made site visits to look at progress on our works at Chipping.  With one project all but completed (couple of minor amendments to be made) and the other 1/3 of the way through it felt good to be seeing work delivered on the ground, especially with the good weather making it feel as though spring was now here!

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The Kirk Mill Weir fish easement

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The fish easement under construction behind Talbot Inn, Chipping

Friday was also a volunteer planting day on Cam beck.  Almost all tree planting was completed by Sunday.  And our many thanks to those volunteers who turned out!  We are really getting a good system going for our volunteer days now!

Also over the last two weeks our outline proposals for the Burnley works were produced and presented to the project steering group.  This had some great feedback, and we hope that the URES website will be up and running soon for all to see our proposals!

The invasives project ran its first training day in partnership with Myerscough College which was a fantastic day and well attended.  Our thanks to Myerscough College, as well as the volunteers who made it a fantastic day.  Soon there will be other training days for volunteers wanting to undertake works.  Please get in touch with Adam or Charlie if you are interested.

Ribble Life is pushing ahead and we’ve held several more meetings with Stakeholders.  We are planning some more catchment appraisal tours and workshops from April onwards, so please keep an eye on the Ribble Life Website for information.  You will notice the website has limited information on it.  We would encourage you as stakeholders to send in information and articles that you would like to see on there.

Gareth has now completed the 2011 Fisheries Scientist report which you will find online later today.  This report is a fantastic piece of work, and shows how the last 4 years are coming together.  You will see that we’ve produced a very initial inter year graph showing how populations of fry are fluctuating.  I would ask that you remember these graph are only at sites REPEATED EVERY year for the last 4 years.  So it doesn’t show how populations have varied at every site, only those that have been repeated.  However this will improve each year as we have increase our surveys and repeated site each year, e.g. we 202 sites in 2008, 243 in 2009, 273 in 2010 and 300+ in 2011.

The Darwen walkover are now almost complete and we will be starting to draw up our priority sites for fish passage in the next few months, ahead of finalising the list once invert and fisheries surveys are completed over the summer.

The work Life balance…

February 19, 2012

 

It’s been nearly a month since my last post; work has just become exceptionally busy.  I say work, but it’s more than work to me and the trust.  I’ve often been asked how the trust does so much, the answer is simple – we don’t stop working.  For me there is no separation between work and life.  This has been particularly evident over the last 4 weeks.  Between the paper work, developing new projects and delivering existing ones I’ve not stopped.  Thank fully I have a very supportive (and patient) fiancé!  I have been able to do some work from home in the evenings which makes it easier, but Abbie has started to dread the lap top coming out of my work bag!  The balance for me is not so much about work and life, but about the type of work.  Getting out and pollarding willows to provide willow stakes for tree planting, tree planting itself or visiting work sites are the things that keep me from going insane – basically seeing and being involved in the physical work that will restore our rivers.  Often it becomes too easy to disassociate the grant applications, project plans and general paperwork from why we do them, the work on the ground!  It’s also critical to be involved in the work on the ground as otherwise you have no idea what you are asking of your, staff, volunteers or contractors, which informs the grant applications, consents and everything else!

The last fortnight has really involved being locked away in my office for the most part putting together potential collaborative project plans.  We are hoping to deliver a series of catchment and sub-catchment scale projects across the Ribble Catchment involving true holistic management.  From barrier removal, to habitat management and diffuse & point source pollution reduction.

In between we have been seeing our project delivered.  With the beginning of construction of the fish easement at Chipping, Large Woody Debris work at Knowlmere, completion of the Grip Blocking at Ribble Head and fencing on Cam Beck.  The fish easement at Chipping should be completed within a fortnight, and is the lowest barrier to migration on Chipping Brook.  We will then move on to another small weir further upstream.  Although that isn’t the last barrier unfortunately the nature of the next barrier means that we can’t do anything.

At Knowlmere there is a section of bank that has been badly eroded and poached by livestock.  With funding from the AONB, the Estate and Lancashire Fly we have installed a series 60 pieces of Large Woody Debris that will provide habitat for invertebrate and juvenile fish, as well as stabilise the bank.  The LWD is a series of whole Sitka spruce trees that have their root plates forming the line of the bank and are buried in the bank to secure them in place.  The trees are being removed from a site where they are considered an eyesore and being installed in a place where they can do good – a real win-win!  The Sitka spruces won’t grow but will provide the stabilisation necessary to protect the bank.  We’ll now talk to the stakeholders involved to see if there is agreement to plant willows or Alders that will provide the long term stability.

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  • Looking upstream from the bridge before
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  • Looking upstream from the bridge after
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  • The bank before
  • spacer The bank after
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  • Looking across the river before
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  • Looking across the river after

The Grip blocking on Blea Moor is complete and we hope now to start to talk to land owners about opportunities to expand this work to cover the whole of the upper Ribble area.  However this will take many years and careful consultation.

Although the fencing on Cam beck was completed a while ago, there were still two gates to hang.  These are now in and, shortly we will be organising a volunteer tree planting day to finish of the works.

There will be other tree planting projects coming up in the next 6 weeks, at stock beck and at Easington on the Hodder.  We are just finalising the consents and permission before ordering the trees, tubes and stakes.

Tomorrow and Tuesday there is a volunteer tree planting day near Settle, at the top of Long Preston Deeps.  We’ve now got all 1400 trees tubes and stakes ready for planting, and we hope to get a good turn out to get all the trees planted by Tuesday afternoon.

I have also squeezed in a day on the River Darwen with Katie to start planning our next feasibility stage or work.  We visited over a dozen weirs, but I believe there was only 1 that we could do nothing about.  The weirs we can tackle also include the famous Red Rock Falls.  Although there are some who believe the weir at the water fall was only adding to an existing barrier, our assessment has demonstrated that this is not the case and it is completely feasibly for passage to be reinstated.

Gareth is now starting to feel the pressure as the beginning of the salmon tagging project looms ever nearer.   Over the next few weeks he will be installing the passive listening stations, and has already worked with the EA to ensure that the trap and all other kit is in place ready to begin.

Jo has undertaken the first of her catchment appraisal tours with the Environment Agency at Chipping on the River Loud.  It was a successful day with many people fascinated and keen to be involved in work going forward.  The Ribble Life website is now live, there is a mixture of information on there, but what we are really keen for is to see people sending us information, articles, photos, and ideas for inclusion on the site.

The invasives project seems to gather pace every day, which is incredible because they already seem to be moving at light speed!  There is an “introduction to invasives species control” training day on Thursday at Myerscough College.  This is a special course that Myerscough are running in partnership with the trust to help in seeing real river improvements delivered on the ground.  The course was so over booked that we are trying to organise a second.  As well as this course there will be a series training days for use of pesticide to control Himalayan balsam, Japanese Knotweed and Giant Hogweed.  IF you are interested in any of these courses please get in touch with Charlie or Adam.  The courses are free, but numbers are limited and a commitment to undertaking invasives control must be given.

Vic is ploughing ahead with the URES project and the next steering group meeting will be in a weeks time.  We have received the first set of outline designs for habitat improvements in Burnley; these will now be looked at by stakeholders and the community before being returned for detailed designs to be completed.

Stephen has now lined up the next 7 habitat schemes across the catchment.  We hope to secure funding for this in the coming months ahead of delivery in the summer.

Trout-in-the-Classroom is going well and the eggs are just starting to hatch.  We hope this year to work with the Wild Trout Trust to deliver a trial of mayfly in the classroom in the Catchment.  This will allow us to do more work in schools that won’t be as expensive as trout in the classroom.

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