Last Event – Discovering Beverley Brook
On the beautiful morning of Sunday 20th March, Discoverers met up at Roehampton Gate to learn all about the Beverley Brook.
Brian and Stephen showed us and explained what they do as part of the Riverfly Monitoring Team. We heard about the Downstream Defender, the aptly name ‘hero of the Brook’ which stops debris and other pollutants from entering the brook form nearby populated areas.
They also showed us what they look for when they test the quality of the brook’s water: a healthy river is a river that is capable of harbouring wildlife and therefore eight groups of invertebrates are checked every month for their presence and numbers. We saw mayfly larvae (mayflies lay their eggs in water and the pre adult stages (larvae) live in the water), freshwater shrimps and we even saw a huge fish!
Brian and Stephen then showed us the recent work that has been done on the brook as part of a Restoration Programme which aimed to make the brook a wildlife-friendly place again.
We had a go at calculating the velocity of the flow (how quickly the river travels down) with our rubber duck and a timer and to finish off, we held a duck race!
It was a beautiful morning in Richmond Park, we learnt a lot and we had lots of fun too!
Thanks to all our volunteers without whom none of this could happen and especially to the brilliant retired teacher Juliet Mills who stepped in as Leader for Monique, who had to stay at home with covid, and to Brian McDonald and Stephen Russell, intrepid volunteers and river monitors extraordinaire!
Watch a video that we made by clicking here that talks about about the River-flying process.