A valiant band of would be kick samplers comprising members
of the WFV along with some SGCT volunteers,
a local resident and a mature (so he claims) student congregated at the
Sambrook Centre in Stirchley clad in various rubbery items of clothing. Oblivious to the stares of other folk who
probably thought it was a convention for fetishists we signed the volunteers
form and the risk assessment (at least that’s what Matt said they were !) and
trooped out to the Land Rover to get kitted up.
We donned yet more rubberware (gloves) and decided to split
into two groups and when Steve said “I know where those dots on the map are.” the
other WFV members joined his gang and set off.
“Don’t we want some buckets and trays and spoons and bowls
and dip trays and nets and other stuff” I said. Sheepishly they returned to the Land Rover and
collected said necessary equipment.
Rather like the Famous Five but under the pseudonyms of Penny, Margaret,
Liz, Steve and Nigel we set off again.
Steve got rather excited on seeing a drain cover (!) and we
fully expected him to disappear down it and pop up half a mile away smelling
of.....roses ?
We finally reached the furthest sampling point and Steve
said “It looks like it’s got a soggy bottom so it’s probably a waders job”. All
eyes turned to me as I was the only one with waders and a history of having a
soggy bottom – having sat on my stool on a previous outing after a dip tray had
mysteriously leaked all over it. I duly stepped into the shallow water and
promptly sank up to my knees in ooze the water lapping gently half way up my
thighs and threatening to provide another soggy bottom.
As I moved into the centre of the brook a large number of
bubbles rose to the surface and, upon bursting, released a noxious effluvium of
Hydrogen sulphide and Methane. We decided to ask Matt to add “Possible presence
of dangerous gases” to his risk assessment to which the amelioration appears to
be, judging by the actions of my colleagues on the bank, bravely running away whilst
chortling !
After a 20sec riverdance (which turned out a bit like slow
motion alternate legged pogo-ing) I overcame the suction of the swamp and finally
got some ooze into the tray whereupon we desperately started to look for signs
of life. Liz spotted a 2mm diameter water mite and we thought that was it but
then found, to our surprise a caseless caddis. Moving upstream a bit to where
there was sparse vegetation I varied the technique and let one leg sink ever
deeper into the ooze whilst trying to skim the silt at the top with the other;
quite balletic in comparison to my previous efforts. Better results were
obtained so, for the third 20sec burst I moved further upstream into the
abundant and appropriately named Fool’s Watercress and decided it wasn’t so
deeeeeeeeeep – (it was). Whilst everyone clustered around the tray perched upon
my portable folding picnic table (it will never be the same again) armed with
plastic spoons and a tea strainer, that Penny produced with a flourish, I “swept”
the water trying not to disturb the sediment. Lo! The bucket into which I
emptied the net was teeming with small cased caddis which had all made their
cases out of pieces of Fool’s Watercress stems. It seems that the aquatic life
in this part of the brook shuns an oozy existence and, sensibly, inhabits the
actual watery bits. We also found a mystery creature which, after much debate,
we finally decided was a kind of water louse (but not the common hoglouse) - but
more of this anon.
Deciding that we had spent more than enough time on one
sample we collected all the gear intending to head off for the “onion” picnic
area for lunch but Steve said “We’ve only got two blue spoons”. So Margaret and I pushed through the hawthorns
and quartered the muddy banks until Steve said “Mind you, I think we only had
two to start with “. Margaret and I said nothing but, for some reason an
illustration from The House at Pooh Corner sprang into my mind:-
Matt had said that the next sampling point was marked by a
yellow spot on a tree. Well, on the way to the picnic area, we found a red spot
on a tree and agreed that when Matt says yellow he really means red (or blue,
or green etc.). Sitting in pleasant sunshine eating our lunches, supplemented
by biscuits from Liz (chocolate fingers no less), we saw a buzzard on the
ground apparently feeding but we were not close enough to make out on what. A
peacock (we think) butterfly fluttered by and sundry warblers warbled. We also
saw some geese !
Returning to the red yellow spot it was Margaret’s turn to
sample the stream where there was a much more stable bed to the stream. A good
collection of aquatic creatures was decanted into the tray including the
largest number of stonefly larvae we have yet encountered – a good sign. At one
point Margaret complained of backache so Steve advised a better posture so
Margaret said she couldn’t adopt that posture because so .........bicker,
bicker, all was well with the world.
Just before we left, Penny skilfully intercepted a Hairy
shield bug by sitting in its path and the rest of us expressed our frustration
that we’d been actively looking for shield bugs for weeks without finding so
much as an instar and all Penny had to do was just be there for it.
We packed up again and moved
out – well all bar Liz who was trying to photograph the shield bug. I hung back
to bridge the gap between her and the rest of the gang who knew where we were
supposed to be going. “Come on Lizzie”. Eventually she caught up and we arrived
at the next sampling point. As Steve
performed the ritual wellie dance it began to rain but we didn’t care !
Amongst the creatures in the
tray this time were two fishes. Someone muttered something about five loaves and
I waited for the thunderbolt. Also in
the tray was another mystery “water louse” and a water cricket which caused
much excitement.
The rain stopped as abruptly as
it had started and we wended our way to the next sampling point hoping that the
other group had got there first as it was getting a bit late for a day’s
WFVing.
Sure enough there they were
with a great collection of aquatic creatures (but no shield bugs !) including
three(!) water scorpions and a red and a green leech. It was decided that the
red leech was red because it had just had a meal of blood and the green leach
was just jealous!
We returned to the Land Rover
and agreed, yet again, that there are very few better ways of spending a day
than mucking about in the water with good friends.
The sessions are not just for
those who did the training a while back but are open to all WFV & SGCT as
well as local residents so why not come along to the next one on 10th May – details in the WFV diary.
Oh and that water lousey thing
– we now believe it is the aquatic larva of a terrestrial beetle Helodes minuta.
Nigel
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