Rivington Kick Sample Volunteer Day

The weekend saw FoTV join Groundworks and their Love My Rivers Project, Rivington Country Park Rangers, Environment Times and other members of the Douglas Catchment Partnership for some Kick Sampling near to the River Douglas source at Lower Rivington Reservoir, Bolton.

The group split into two teams and kick sampled a number of locations along the river Douglas stretches. Doing this meant that we could cover more ground and be able to get more kick sample locations recorded.

With it being late in the season there wasn’t a great abundance of invertebrate finds, but the variety of species was positive. A fantastic number of bullhead fish were also discovered. We’ve been looking for this fish species within the river Tawd for a while, but with no luck. We’ve had many of the local community say that they used to catch bullhead in the Tawd, when they were much younger, so we know they have definitely been in the river at one stage, and could possibly still be. Fingers crossed.

European Bullhead (Cottus gobio)

The results the group obtained here will be recorded into the ARMI (Anglers’ Riverfly Monitoring Initiative) UK database for study in the future. The team had a great day and the weather was perfect. It’s brilliant getting out and helping with other member projects within the Douglas Catchment.

Keep checking back to see all our up-to-date news on the FoTV kick sampling adventures.