Burnley Town Centre Fish Passes

Sept. 8th 2011
           Our frustrating wet weather (heavy drizzly overcast days) typical Lancashire weather is now into its 4th day and all work on the new fish pass has been stopped because of the volume of water.
     

 By the time theses fish passes are completed (early October) I hope to be walking along the many upland streams in our river system to see how many Sea trout and Salmon ascend to these newly opened potential spawning grounds. I have no high hopes as it will take several years before we see them in any numbers on these new spawning beds. 

Local Wanderings

Monday 5th Sept . 2011
    The weather after a few brighter warmer days has reverted back to the wet, unsettled, windy weather which has been predominant in our part of the world this summer. I haven't been out of our local area over the last 3 weeks but there's always locations to visit as the season are ever changing as we slowly move into early Autumn.

Fair Snape Fell.....  mid Aug and a weekend away with our family at Chipping

           Two of our grandchildren sheltering under the Butterbur leaves

Walking on the moors around Widdop Rocks 18th Aug.

   This rock must be an erratic dumped by the glaciers of the last ice age

22nd Aug.

 This is a corn field wild flower mix sown after workmen had repaired a roadside banking subsidence up  Thursden Valley in the Pennines,  pretty though the flowers are I'm not so sure that they are inkeeping with the moorland surroundings. This moorland stream holds Bullheads and Trout so I reverted back to my younger years doing a spot of fishing with the grandchildren.

 31st. Aug
    I never tire of our heather moorland which always puts on a good show around the end of Aug. so another walk over the moors to Top Withens the remote farmhouse  It is associated with" Wuthering Heights" the novel written by Emily Bronte one of the Bronte sisters.
        On this walk we are joined by Victoria our granddaughter  who was staying with us for a few days.

1st Sept .
             A pleasant bike ride along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to East Marton about 15 miles round trip

                                             East Marton
3rd Sept.
              And finally in complete contrast to our rural scenery,  a few photos taken in the old industrial  area of  Burnley where at the confluence of the Rivers Calder and Brun a new fish pass is being installed. It's over 150 years since these two rivers were clean enough to allow Salmon And Sea Trout to swim through the town to their spawning grounds high in the Pennines. Now our local rivers are much cleaner and far less polluted the Ribble Fisheries are installing fish passes on previously polluted rivers in the hope that the migratory fish will return to their original spawning grounds.

    Near to the roundabout on Active Way  the confluence of the two rivers

   These are the Stainless Steel Fish Passes that are being installed, one for each weir. As the water flows down the structure a vortex is created by the positioning of all the baffles, this forms a vacuum at its centre, any fish caught up in it can swim up the pass and clear the weir with very little effort.