No such thing as a dead SERT

In case you didn't visit the river last week (and you probably haven't done since then), here is a short summary of the excellent work done by the South East Rivers Trust mainly on beat 3c during that week. It was expertly overseen and supported by Nigel who deserves great praise for devoting a whole week to this.

Furthermore he even wrote up the text below, so I didn't have to, so here's a taste of what they got up to.

"The South East Rivers Trust (SERT) returned to our stretch of the River Teise last week and carried out habitat improvements downstream of the Tractor Bridge at Harpers Farm. The work involved felling trees and fixing them into the river on steel rope leashes, which will enable them to find their own position in the river once we have some higher river levels. These should increase the amount of gravel scouring, and therefore spawning habitat, as well as providing great cover for fry and smaller fish. They will also filter sediment, helping to keep the river clear in the summer. SERT also installed a couple of brash berms to provide protection for some heavily eroded banks as well as great habitat for fry.

Our thanks go to Harry, Nick, Ishaaq and Charlie, all of whom worked really hard all week to get as much done as possible. We will be discussing further work that, subject to funding, we hope they will be able to carry out in the spring.

The trees and berms will require a little time to settle into position and we will be monitoring how they are progressing over the next few months.

There is also a little bit of work to do by our own volunteers to finish one area of the SERT work, as they ran out of time on Friday afternoon. So please bear with us as one area looks a little unfinished at present."

Here are a few more pics of the work they did, and I saw a little of it, and it was way beyond the capabilities of our work-parties, so we we're very lucky to get such enthusiastic support.

  They probably look a bit tidier now, and will be different again after the heavy rains, but lots of new challenges and opportunities for next season.

Cheers

PeterB