Saturday 12 March 2011

Visiting Brock wood and an experiment on the stream

 After packing my kit ready for filming Badgers at a friends garden I decided to take a walk down to Brock wood to check on the sett and that the stream level was low enough for the Badgers to cross so they could access there feeding areas. On the other side of the stream they have began to remark there territory with there poo pits and it would be great to film them crossing the stream as some of the area where they cross is very deep. At the sett the Badgers have been busy expanding there tunnels and the amount of soil around was unbelieveble this is another sign that if any cubs have been born they should be playing around the main sett entrance very soon. 
Down by the stream last week we setup a live minnow trap to see if there was an fish living in the stream as we had seen herons and Kingfishers in the area but we have not seen any fish in the clear water. So we found an area with deep water tied the trap line to a stick on the bank and then baited with a fat ball which birds eat and fish seem to like as I used as ground bait when I used to go fishing due to it taking a long time to break up. 
When we checked we found a few Minnows and a Stickleback which shows a good selection of small fish perfect for Kingfishers after releasing the fish back where we found them we had a question answered. After getting my answer of were there fish in the brook or not and I began to think about the rest of the stream and was the area downstream more polluted or if there would be more fish or none at all as the stream is separated by shallow, fast water and are a number of pipes that feed water into the brook further downstream. So I will relocate and bait to see what else we kind find and are there any bigger fish to be found downstream which has alot more overhanging trees. 
I really want to kayak the brook due to being shallow, slow and not very wide it  seems like a very relaxing place to just go with the flow maybe if the we get a warm day it may be an option.

Thanks for reading
Mike

5 comments:

  1. Really interesting Mike. Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.

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  2. Just started reading your blogs after seeing them on Twitter @ wildlife_photo. Very interesting.
    Was wondering if you know anywhere to see Badgers along the Weaver by Hartford, N'wich.
    Thx Heather

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  3. Cheers Gary, thanks for coming back and reading my blog.

    Hi Heather
    I think there is someone who runs the Northwich Badger group let me have a think and I will get back to you.

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  4. good luck with the badger filming mike, im off to do some in the easter holidays! BTW how did you make the minnow trap?

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  5. I bought off ebay there very cheap.

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