Long time, no word, so here goes. It’s been all change up here in Munlochy over the last few weks.
Out have gone John, Jenny and Owen and in have come me Lindsay, and Emily as VOs with Will as Northern area Action Break leader. Ullie is, as my Nana’s generation would say, awaiting a happy event so she too will be leaving soon and in her place we have the very capable Karen, who apart from one unfortunate incident with a large Rhodi log and my head, has fitted in perfectly.
Dave, fortunately, has remained in situ to keep it all ticking over on a daily basis. Jenny remains firmly at the helm.
We have been involved in several projects with the Green Gyms. The Inverness GG has been working in and around Merkinch and with the REAL project based at Inverness High School. For those of you who don’t know, the REAL project grows its own fruit and vegetables and sells the produce to various outlets throughout the city and beyond, raising funds as it does so.
The Dingwall GG has been kept busy almost wholly thanks to the eradication of Himalayan Balsam. An escapee from gardens (deliberately so in some cases), this is a tenacious and invasive plant which will exploit any chance to take root in the wild. We took a slight detour from its uprooting on Tuesday when we joined Simon McElvey, of Cromarty Firth Fisheries’ Trust, to do some ‘electro-fishing’ at Dunglass island on the River Conon. I had no idea what this would involve and, of course, the usual speculation was made about dropping a live charge into the water and electrocuting its inhabitants etc.
Simon explained that the procedure allowed the Fishery’s staff to keep an eye on what was thriving or otherwise in the river at a given point. He was equipped with a large backpack and a long pole with a hoop at the end of it. He explained all about the cathode and anode and what they do to create the ‘force field’ to which the fish are drawn once the hoop is submerged. Electro-fishing stuns the fish temporarily making it easier for them to be gathered up in a net (or suitable container); they can then be examined more closely. In order to allow the fish to remain out of water longer than the electro-fishing stunning does, they are anaethsetised briefly before being returned unharmed to their home.
We saw Lampreys, Eels, Trout and Salmon with several Minnows and a couple of Sticklebacks. The Minnows, it transpires, are present thanks to the ‘efforts’ of our Glaswegian angler friends (of whom I have none!). They come to the Highlands on fishing trips, have a swally, fish all day then ‘deposit’ their bait live into the rivers. Minnows have therefore made the journey from the south of England to the north of Scotland without really trying. As we were clearly feeling withdrawal symptoms, on the way home, we began clearing HB from the margins of Dunglass Island.