On April 1st 2012 myself, Mel Bickerton (University of Birmingham) and Laura George (UCL MSc student) undertook the second post-meandering invertebrate survey of the Glaven at Hunworth meadows.
We spent all day at the river in the lovely spring sunshine. As usual lots of wildlife was seen. Otter and water vole were betrayed by the presence of droppings. We saw brook lamprey (seen spawning on the neighbouring River Stiffkey a week back), bullhead, three-spined stickleback, brown trout and a white-clawed crayfish turned up in one of our invertebrate samples (which was released of course).
We saw Little Egret at the ford near the Environment Agency gauging station and then, as the light faded, a barn owl did a fly past…beautiful!
With the help of Mel, Laura will look at the invertebrate samples this summer for her MSc dissertation…the results will be shared here soon.
Carl Sayer