FPCR have been thrilled to be working alongside Thames21 recently to help deliver on their exciting and important work to restore and improve river systems around London by providing new opportunities for wildlife through the creation of habitat features and the implementation of better management practices.
In one of their latest projects, we have been offering advice to Thames21 on ecological constraints, particularly in relation to bats and water voles, to inform their proposals to enhance a section of the River Pinn in north-west London.
Last week, while conducting water vole and bat surveys for Thames21, two of our ecologists teamed up with their River Restoration Manager to take a group of students from Middlesex University out on a field day exercise to learn about surveying rivers. While Thames21 showed them some River Fly Monitoring surveys, our ecologists took the students through our what we do as a consultancy, including the types of surveys we would typically undertake in our day-to-day work. We gave them an introduction into the legislation and policy that shapes what we do, an overview of the ecology of water voles and bats and then showed them how we undertake preliminary surveys for water vole presence/absence and ground based assessment of potential bat roosting features in trees.
