I arose this morning with the intention of playing in the river (doing the November invertebrate check).  A dry and almost bright day yesterday had reduced the flow to non life threatening levels so a quick check before the snow arrived that we were promised this afternoon seemed a good plan.  No it wasn't.  A look out of the window showed, even at 7 am this morning that the weather Gods weren't playing ball.  It's now been raining hard for hours driven on by an unusual north east wind and the meadows below the house are several inches deep in water.  The river is in full flood and well across the lane down by the Crown Inn.  So no invertebrate check today.

Friday saw me up at Malham Tarn Field Centre for a meeting to review progress in the various crayfish/trout in the classroom projects that have been under way this summer.  These seem to have been very successful with a very encouraging survival rate seen in the captive breeding tanks at both Horton and Wortly schools.  It was concluded that the projects should run for a further year with more sites being investigated especially  places with a high public throughput to maximise the publicity and educational value.

It was further resolved to keep this years crop of young crayfish captive for a further year so that their rate of growth can be monitored and their maturation observed by the schools involved thus giving a bit of continuity whilst next years crop are gathered and hatched.  Whilst these projects are very small scale they do contribute significantly to raising public awareness of the plight of native crayfish and help to ensure that extinction is still some way off yet.

Ian