…a guest blog from Gerry Hough, volunteer catchment co-ordinator for the Guardians of our Rivers invertebrate monitoring programme for the Aberdeenshire Don. Join Gerry as he shares his journey from fly-fishing to becoming a volunteer River Guardian.
I’m more a people person than a bug person, or so I thought. But it turns out you can be both! This is the story of my slow descent into the world of freshwater invertebrate monitoring, and my take home message: the journey is just as much about the people that have joined me along the way as it is about the ecology of the river I care about.
My name is Gerry Hough, and I’m the catchment co-ordinator for the Guardians of our Rivers invertebrate monitoring programme on the Aberdeenshire Don. The monitoring programme has been in existence for a year and a half now, and we have just finished up our second season of monitoring. The programme has been really successful: the Riverfly on the Don group completed 45 individual monthly surveys across 7 sites on the Don, with contributions from over 20 volunteers.
As I reflect on our success so far it is clear to me that this is entirely due to a fantastic cast of characters who have joined me along the way.
Beginnings.
The journey started when I attended a Buglife information session at Haddo House in Aberdeenshire in September 2022. I was a recent convert to fly fishing and was delighted to discover the culture of conservation and concern for the river in the sport. As the name suggests, fly anglers are particularly interested in the fly life of the river. The combination of learning about the Don’s fly life and contributing to a new and exciting conservation project piqued my interest so I went along to the Haddo session. At the event I met Rebecca Lewis from Buglife, who was leading the Guardians of our Rivers project and the seed was sown.
Next, I got in touch with the committee of my local Angling Association, the Aberdeen and District Angling Association (ADAA), to see if we might start sampling on the Association’s waters. The President, Paul Adderton, and the Association Committee could not have been more enthusiastic and supportive, and a plan was hatched. Rebecca attended the Association’s AGM to introduce members to Guardians of our Rivers in January of 2023 and we trained our first set of volunteers in April of that year.
This group of volunteers were a key force in sustaining the monitoring programme in our first year. It turns out that invertebrate monitoring is surprisingly (to me at least) entertaining – we really enjoyed our time on the river together and getting to see what lurked at the bottom of the river was and continues to be absolutely fascinating. And it’s not just us! Four of our key sites are on a well-used riverside path and people regularly stopped to ask us what we are doing – and once they get past the initial shock of a bunch of nerds in waders hanging about on a Sunday afternoon they are intrigued and very supportive of the Guardians programme.
Sustaining.
With the group up and running, the next ingredient for our success came into play – support from a variety of organisations to help us sustain and develop what we were doing. I’ve already mentioned Buglife and the Aberdeen and District Angling Association. Buglife – in the guise of Conservation Officers, Rebecca Lewis and Kerry Dodds – have been there from the beginning and supported us in a wide variety of ways. Rebecca and Kerry have been key to our success; delivering training, offering their expertise, connecting us to other enthusiastic Citizen Scientists and even offering emotional support! The ADAA have also been there from the beginning and have supported us with funding, access to volunteers, access to the river and a wealth of knowledge and good advice on possible sites and other local river wisdom. Early on in the process, Inverurie Angling Association also became involved, and we expanded our sampling sites into Aberdeenshire on their water. More generally, the network of Angling Associations and Syndicates across the river has been key to sustaining and growing the programme – with sites established on Inverurie Angling Association water and in the Kemnay Beat 4 Syndicate water.
All this activity generated a wealth of data about invertebrate numbers across the lower and middle river; with the wonderful data then entered onto an open source database hosted by the Freshwater Biological Association, verified by Buglife for extra support and confidence. Additional support was also made available from the Riverfly Partnership who tie together all the nations Riverfly Hubs.
As Guardians of our Rivers has grown, the support network has widened. Some of our volunteers got involved in other monitoring programmes related to the river, adding water monitoring (FreshWater Watch Great UK Water Blitz) and bat monitoring (Bat Conservation Trust Daubenton’s Bat survey) to our list of achievements. We have also started to discover a large network of groups and charities working hard in Aberdeen and the North East of Scotland on nature, biodiversity, climate change and river health and have engaged with them. In particular here we have had great support from the River Fisheries Boards and the River Trusts on the Don and the Dee, and from our local Climate Action Network Hub (NESCAN).
Reflecting.
I am absolutely delighted at the success of our Guardians group over the last year and a half. I feel we have much to be proud of in terms of establishing multiple sampling sites across the river, and our contribution to other Citizen Science projects on water quality and bat monitoring. We have also had our first success in gaining external funding – from Aberdeen City Council – to expand our water quality monitoring programme alongside our invertebrate monitoring. In addition to this, we have plans to work with various groups to establish new sampling sites on the river and we continue to work with Buglife, the River Trust and Fisheries Board and SEPA to establish robust trigger and target levels (to show both the minimal acceptable conditions and optimal conditions of the monitoring site) for invertebrates across all our sites.
This is all amazing, but what I am really proud of as catchment co-ordinator is the group of people we have collected together to make all this happen. This group is the sole reason the programme got up and running, in our area, and is sustaining itself. Members of the group also link us in to various other groups and organisations in the area, allowing us to expand our activities organically – to consider new sampling sites, to help us apply for funding, to extend our activities into related Citizen Science projects, and to explore how we engage the wider public in our local area to advocate for the river; to involve and inform. So even though I’m loving the bugs, the heart of our Guardians project are the people involved – they have been the catalyst for everything else.
This point brings me to reflection for anyone considering getting involved in the Guardians of our Rivers project – or any Citizen Science project for that matter. At the beginning I worried that I didn’t know enough about invertebrates and ecology to make the right decisions about site location and sampling techniques—but my people helped me. At times I found the responsibility of setting up and supporting sampling sites, collecting and uploading data, communicating with and co-ordinating group activity a little overwhelming – but again, my people helped me. People in the group took responsibility for sites and for specific activities, as a group we discussed group goals and made decisions together about sites, sampling and broader activities, and the group served as a great source of knowledge and skills to draw on to help us sustain and grow. So while I am now a bug person, contributing to the Riverfly on the Don Guardians of our Rivers project has made me more of a people person than ever.
Guardians of our Rivers (GooR) 2022-2024 was a Buglife Scotland partnership project that connected communities across Scotland with their local rivers and the invertebrates that call these places home. Recruiting people to get involved in monitoring the health of their local river, and supporting them in their learning journey to becoming trained Citizen Scientists. This project feds into the The Riverfly Partnership – a network of organisations around the UK, working together to protect our rivers and riverflies.
Guardians of our Rivers concluded in October 2024, but we are delighted to share that the Guardians of Our Rivers (GooR): Next Steps funded project began in October 2024 and will build on the momentum of our previous work to protect freshwater habitats and aquatic invertebrates.
If you would like to find out more and get involved in our current Guardians of our Rivers project head on over to our Next Steps web page.
Main Image Credit: Picking through the net © Gerry Hough
