After a lovely sunny day yesterday its turned wet this morning with low cloud masking the fells.  Whether it will be wet enough to lift the river sufficiently to get the salmon running remains to be seen, but at present the cloud shows little sign of lifting.

Last evening was fairly still and moonlit with just a hint of autumnal chill so Paul and I went up to the Tarn to lamp for crayfish.  You will recall that Paul had marked out the perimeter of the Tarn in 25 meter sections using canes with coloured flags.  Our aim last night was to record sightings of crayfish with in each of  sectors.  We started at the cross wall opposite the hut and worked our way clockwise round the margin.  The results we got are fascinating and show that our native population is well dispersed throughout the Tarn.  We got significantly more creatures in the margin at the hut side probably because this side is sheltered from the light breeze that was blowing from the south west.  The proportion of numbered creatures (from the survey) to unmarked was about one to three with very few smaller creatures active.  It would be interesting to see whether the time of the check has any bearing on numbers seen so I may go up and take another look very late one night next week if the conditions permit.

Despite some dodgy moments both of us managed to stay upright and avoid a soaking.

We did notice that some of the numbered creatures had travelled considerable distance from where they were originally trapped with one (number 1) that was taken in the first trap by the cross wall found down at the south  east corner of the duck wall.

I will see some of you tonight.

Ian