Water Voles on the Chess.

We have some really great news regarding our local water vole population. Our volunteers and landowners continue to check mink rafts for any evidence of mink in the valley (predatory mink are a huge threat to our water vole population).  While riverfly monitoring at a site on the outskirts of Chesham, one of our volunteers checked a mink raft and found lots of water vole footprints on the clay. This is the first time that we have seen water vole signs here since the survey of 2013.  Clearly the water voles are continuing to expand their range upstream. This is a great vindication for everybody’s continued efforts to provide good water vole habitat and protect them from predation. We are excited to see what the 2019 survey will tell us.

http://www.riverchessassociation.co.uk/ 

 Thames WaterBlitz
 

Registration is now open for the 19 ^th and 20 ^th October Thames Water Blitz. Please follow the steps on this   video to register for the next event and request your free Freshwater Watch kit. For the first time, we are running a two day WaterBlitz which coincides with the start of half-term for the majority of schools. We hope this will be a good opportunity for schools and families to join in with freshwater research.

 

This WaterBlitz will be the seventh such event  and it is timed to coincide with the regular Thames sample run undertaken by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) as part of a long-term monitoring programme of the Thames and its tributaries. Along with data collected by CEH and data held by the Environment Agency continued Thames WaterBlitz efforts complement monitoring by providing information from areas and water body types that would otherwise not be monitored. This could be a particularly interesting WaterBlitz given the UK heatwave this summer.  Click here to read what Dr Steven Loiselle has to say about the UK water crisis and the importance of water monitoring. WaterBlitzes are also a fun learning experience for any volunteer that is interested in their local environment, and would like to learn more about water quality. 

 

As well as asking you to take part, I wondered if you might be able to promote this event through your network of friends and colleagues by asking you to forward this link (  https://ewgis.org/waterblitz-registration/ ) or using the attached pdf.

 

Also, if you are interest in seeing the data collected during previous WaterBlitz Events and getting to know more about your local freshwater environment, please visit the Freshwater Links platform:  https://freshwaterlinks.org , here you will be able to see the WaterBlitz Results Map as well as extra information and data related to freshwater environments within the Thames Catchment.

 

Please feel free to email us at  water@earthwatch.org.uk if you have any further questions.