Hello everyone!

So as promised I have been busy busy since my last blog so lots to tell! In the middle of September I had the pleasure of taking part in the Moray Firth Sea Trout Projects day of talks and a river restoration demonstration day. A major restoration project is ongoing on the river Peffery which is a very important sea trout river in the Cromarty firth. It has been highly modified and a habitat survey a few years back highlighted areas which require restoration. There are abundant sections of JKW and Himalayan balsam along sections of the river which I have mapped and are being cleared by BTCV. BTCV volunteers have made a great impact on Himalayan balsam along the banks and under this current project we are hoping to eradicate it over the next 3 years which is promising. As part of the restoration demonstration day members from the Wild Trout Trust came to demonstrate restoration techniques which involved shifting a lot of heavy rocks and logs! They showed how to build a number of low impact structures which improve and create improved habitat for sea trout.

So the most exciting news is that I now have a licence to kill! James Bond eat your heart out…ok maybe not that Hollywood…I have completed the course and exam and got my Pesticides licence…so a licence to kill weeds with pesticides…yup glam or what! The course and exam were intense but I got through it and the next day was out spraying Rhode regrowth. In the middle of all that I gave a talk on the invasive species work that the fishery trust I work with are carrying out in the Cromarty Firth at the Highland Invasive Species Forum. Other talks on the day were on the Highland mink project, Lever and Mulch technique for Rhododendron (including a song from set of Rhode pipes!), a Salmonberry project on the West coast and an update on Giant Hogweed control on the Black Isle. The afternoon brought a visit to our big Rhode clearance project on the river Orrin, here the Lever and Mulch experts talked about their method as an alternative to cutting and burning and applying chemical. We are hoping to have the guys back to give a workshop on the L&M technique. In the meantime we are continuing with Rhode clearing, spraying and stump injecting regrowth over the winter with BTCV volunteers and fishery staff…I’ve got a good incentive to chop down lots of Rhodes…wood for my wood burning stove so I don’t freeze!

I’m on the last leg of my plant surveys, and seem to have left the two largest rivers to last! But luckily the weather is holding out and the mapping is almost all done, the completed rivers data is going onto GIS mapping software and producing lots of pretty maps! I’ve really enjoyed the surveying but it certainly hasn’t all been a walk in the park I have the scratches and tick bites to prove it I’ve even had an exploding balsam seed up my nose!! It’s been a really good way of meeting all the Ghilles and a few other interesting characters who I will have further involvement with. With my further involvement in the Highland mink project I will be looking to increase the coverage of rafts and traps around the catchment, I’ll also be setting up a number of tracking tunnels along the coast to monitor the presence of mink along the coast.

So lots to be getting on with over the next wee while! I’m getting out this week with a river biologist from SEPA to see the work they do on the rivers in the firth and will be getting even better acquainted with the wonderful Water Framework Directive! I think we are going to be doing some kick sampling so I’ll get to see what all the fuss is about you freshwater invert folk! Also getting prepared for the BBC ‘Live and Deadly’ event at the end of the month, all alien invader puns welcome!
Cheerio for now!

Meryl
p.s you can tell I still haven’t got the hang of uploading pictures with this!sorry!