WTT Blog

At a recent virtual conference hosted by Colne & Calder Rivers Trust, our Prof In Practice, Jonny Grey, crossed paths with Sam Townsend, a final year undergraduate in Geography at the University of Huddersfield. His interests revolve around aquatic macroinvertebrates and Natural Flood Management, which may well strike a chord with many of our members too. So, we’ve opened the WTT blog to Sam as our earliest Early Career Researcher to date.

“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy”

…paraphrased from Helmuth von Moltke, 1900

Since beginning to play with the Mayfly in the Classroom (MIC) idea in 2008, many instances of “contact” between the concept, associated apparatus and its users have occurred. Arising feedback from schools (teachers & pupils) as well as delivery partners (Rivers Trusts & Friends-of groups) is continually used to shape and tweak the resources and methods.

A part of Jonny Grey's role as a Professor in Practice is to forge links with the academic community and facilitate research projects. It was serendipitous timing last year when Lizzie Thomas contacted WTT, asking if we had any data relating to our numerous restorations - Jonny's 'TROUT project, Tackling Resilience On Underperforming Tributaries, was just beginning to bear fruit. Lizzie is a Zoology graduate from the University of Southampton and has just completed her MSc research in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation at Imperial College, London. She was particularly interested in understanding the effects of habitat restoration on salmonids given their ecological and economic value and, here, summarises the findings from her thesis.

Did you know that when an emerging mayfly pushes through the surface-film of water to hatch, it's demonstrating a physical feat equivalent to a human breaking through a kitchen table-top?

Having kids and teachers witness this feat - and exactly HOW they do it (along with the strange transformation from "dun" to "spinner") in any of our upwing riverflies are key experiences within "Mayfly in the Classroom" - now available in full-colour guidebook form.

You can click here to order a copy

Twenty-five years ago, I walked the Pennine Way parallel to the River Aire and stopped below Newfield Bridge for lunch. I imagine my casting arm was twitching slightly at the sight of the limestone stream with its clear water, mossy stones, and marsh marigold fringe. The white-water cascading over the weir was framed neatly through the arch of the road bridge, picturesque yes, but certainly not natural….

Almost 20 years later and I returned to that very spot with local EA Fisheries Officer, Pete Turner. I’d not long arrived in Yorkshire with my WTT cap on, and he was giving me a whistle stop tour and introduction to the Upper Aire Project (more of which, later). I looked at it then objectively with my fish passage polaroids on. We both agreed it was one for the wish list of removals....

Thanks to the enthusiasm of local volunteers, the urban areas of Somerset’s Axe and Sheppey river catchments now have 16 newly-trained riverfly monitors to look after them, as part of our Trout in the Town TWIST (Transforming Waterways in Somerset’s Towns) project.

A guest blog post from Lennard Powell of the Afan Valley Angling Club near Neath in South Wales. The Afon Afan and the Nant Clais, like too many rivers across the UK, suffers from sewage pollution and excess sedimentation. Lennard and his fellow members have carried out a detailed investigation and the resulting report has been passed to Dwyr Cymru Welsh Water ( who are a ‘not for profit’ water company) and the regulator in Wales, National Resources Wales. Receipt of the report has been acknowledged and we await with interest to see what action will result. This map on the Rivers Trust website identifies where the sewerage network discharges and overflows into rivers in England and Wales. Andy Thomas of the Wild Trout Trust carried out an Advisory Visit to the club’s 17 miles of water in 2010. Lennard can be contacted at lennard.powell@ntlworld.com

We’re delighted to announce that PARR (Pewsey Avon River Restoration) is the latest urban river restoration group to become an accredited Trout in the Town chapter.

When Theo Pike, our Trout in the Town officer for the south of England, undertook an Advisory Visit for the upper Avon in Pewsey (Wiltshire) recently, he identified a number of important improvements that a motivated community group could make to boost the health of the river for fish, insects, birds – and local people too.

WTT's Theo Pike has been busy surveying rivers in six Somerset towns for the Wild Trout Trust’s TWIST (Transforming Waterways In Somerset Towns) project.

April and May are the peak time for sea trout smolt migration, when some young brown trout decide it is time to leave the river and go to sea. But what is a smolt? Denise Ashton explains.