Crayfishing

I did something a bit different on sunday, going out with the Notts Crayfish Group to look for our native White-clawed Crayfish in a stream near Mansfield. White-claws can still be found in several watercourses in the west of the county, but there survival is rather uncertain , as they are threatened by the presence of the invasive non-native Signal Crayfish which occur  in the east of the county, and the west in Derbyshire; Signals compete with our White-claws and carry a plague to which the White-claws succumb.

We had a successful day, catching 26 White-claws between us (under licence - they're a protected species). These were mainly juveniles, but also one large adult. The only down side was that I didn't have any time left afterwards to do any birding!

White-clawed Crayfish (in a bucket)