20-05-2016: Water water everywhere….

Duckling feeding on the vegetation in the KU riverbank

This week we attempted to get into the river to undertake one of our river TLC sessions...

We had planned to pull up the invasive Himalayan balsam, fix and replace posters which had been knocked off the posts in the river by the torrential rain last week...

Torrential rain last week had ducks sheltering on the terrace

...and dig out some of the watercress which is swamping the other plants on the bank.

In need of a little fixing and digging

While the Riverfly Monitoring Volunteers braved the river…just before the torrential rains got them! An hour later, the river levels had risen enough to affect the footing on the bank, causing us to cancel the session.

Avishka and Dave soaked as they completed this months RMI

We quickly popped in to fix the remaining falling posters so that they wouldn’t wash away. But everything else has been postponed until next Wednesday.

Just in case I forget to post after next week’s event (fingers crossed for no rain!) next Friday is WWF’s Wear It Wild Day.

If you don’t have time to Wear It Wild on the day, you can help by Binning it for Wildlife instead – We’re still finding lots of litter like empty plastic cups from the bar in our river bank. Please Bin It for Wildlife so that these cups and other litter don’t keep falling into the river.

It will help make the site a safer place for these little guys to keep feeding on the natural food sources they find in the river, rather than processed foods such as bread which is bad for them, resulting in malnutrition in ducks.    

If you can help on the river bank next Wednesday, from 1.30-4.30pm, please email biodiversity@kingston.ac.uk

Take care