Over the past two months I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of different projects. In August I assisted members from the North Pennines AONB Partnership's Peatland Programme with various surveys and field assignments. These tasks included eroded peat surveys, mapping of active drainage grips in the blanket bogs around Alston and carrying out quadrat surveys around blocked grips. Healthy blanket bogs are important for many reasons including: carbon sequestration and storage, as a habitat for many specially adapted plants and animals, flood mitigation, reduction in water treatment expenditure, as a record of climatic change, preservation of items of archaeological importance and they support rural industries like grouse shooting.
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| The moorland at Dufton Fell |
Since we were working in the mountains we were subject to more interesting weather conditions than the dales below. So while Stanhope might be bathed in sunshine we would be shrouded in mist, like being hugged by a cool wet sponge. Luckily we were usually too absorbed in the work to notice.
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| A particularly grim day on the fell - Emma Taylor |
Nearly a third of England's remaining blanket bog is found in the North Pennines so this work is important to assess the effectiveness of restoration methods applied in damaged areas and to help the AONB Partnership to advise landowners on sustainable management of their peatlands.
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| Assessing species cover beside a blocked grip - Emma Taylor |
Early in September Alistair (last years North Pennines AONB Partnership trainee) and I got to participate in an electrofishing session with Steve Hudson from the Wear Rivers Trust. Electrofishing is a method of sampling streams, rivers and lakes which allows the size and age structure of fish populations to be determined within the sampling area. This is important information for assessing the status of fish stocks for example. In electrofishing, an electric field is applied to the water (using a backpack mounted device in our case) which causes fish in the vicinity of the field to become immobilised for easy capture with hand nets.
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| Electrofishing in Ireshopburn - Alistair Lockett |
The netted fish are then placed in a bucket of water until they are ready to separated into species and measured. If done correctly electrofishing has a good capture efficiency for fish whilst resulting in minimal harm to the animal. This is achieved by altering the voltage on the device to account for the conductivity of the sampled stream, not placing the anode (the hooped rod inserted into the water to stun the fish) too close to the fish and by returning the fish to the river as soon as possible to reduce stress.
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| Electrofishing is particularly good at sampling fish which hide amongst stones, vegetation and beneath overhanging banks - Alistair Lockett |
Over the course of the day we sampled four 30m stretches in two rivers in Weardale. We caught many Brown Trout of various ages, including a nice specimen which probably weighed over 2lbs, which is a good indication of the ecosystem health in the headwaters of the River Wear.
Later on that week I had my first volunteering session with Durham Wildlife Trust at Low Barns Nature Reserve. Our task for the day was to rake up cut grass on a meadow and once collected it remove it from the site. By removing the grass cuttings the nutrient content of the meadows soil is steadily reduced. This allows the plant species adapted to low nutrient conditions to recolonise the meadow and increase its value as a habitat. The piles of grass, which were placed in a small wood, would also provide a temporary habitat and food source for invertebrates.
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| Clearly all the manual handling courses I have participated on have yet to sink in - Alistair Lockett |
