but we are waiting with bated breath to see if it will continue to flow.
 |
| The view from the bridge towards the weir... |
So far here this has resulted in work to the river bed of the Aigronne...
which we blogged about here and also here...
but now it is the turn of the banks [or berges] along our stretch to be fettled.
Yohann, the River Technician, wants our stretch to remain pretty much as is...
too much having been removed either side of us.
He has identified a couple of trees that will need to be dealt with...
but these can be 'tetard'ed [pollarded in English] and I have identified some others that I would like to have done...
and these will be included.
What is worrying us, however, is what will be happening with the millstream [bief]....
there has just been a meeting with Richard, our neighbour, concerning his vanne [sluice in English] and the impedance of fish migration that it supposedly causes.
If they cannot come up with a method of helping the trout, etc. pass it...
they are talking about destroying the weir [barrage] at the end of our property.
That will leave the millstream as a series of stinking pools in the summer...
full of mozzies...
not nice at all.
Not for us, our health and our future.
It would probably mean that we would have to infill with rocks to create a dry bed in the summer...
 |
| The wier at the end of our property |
Just as worrying is the fact that this will also destroy the water gradient across the meadow...
depriving the new willows and the existing vegetation of water in the summer months.
The type of vegetation that we have in the water meadow has evolved to survive in damp places...
things like the reedgrass, the Ragged Robin [Lychnis flos-cuculi] Fleur de Coucou and the Snake's-head Fritillary [Fritillaria meleagris] Fritillaire pintade....
It will also destroy history.
The bief has been in place since the 11th Century...
supplying waterpower to two mills.
The trout managed happily then...
and aren't impeded by Richard's sluice as he has it open when they are migrating anyway...
as would have been the old mill sluices.
[This to avoid damage in winter when the water is flowing at its fastest and strongest.]
The fishermen, however, to make up for the loss of native Brown Trout...
have been introducing trout...
apparently these are 'triploid' females and therefore infertile.
The native males now have a one in four chance of meeting a fertile female which....
surprise, surprise....
decreases their recovery still further.
The fish farms create the infertile females by giving the eggs an electric shock...
it is in their interest to create these, as people have to keep going back for more.
And they will go back for more of these...
they increase in weight far more quickly than the fertile native females!
 |
| One of two Brown Trout caught in an electrical fishing survey near our house!! |
We wait!!
But not with bated breath...
not in France!!
