2022
Improving the Scarrow Beck, live audio streams and a Riffle
Health benefits
In February, the Greening Aldborough group helped to clear bankside vegetation ahead of work on the Scarrow Beck to improve the river channel and benefit invertebrate and fish communities. The stretch of river runs behind the doctors surgery in Aldborough and provides a great opportunity to create space for the community to spend time near water for their enjoyment and wellbeing.
A more natural profile
During April we've been working on the Scarrow Beck at Aldborough to provide rivers and catchments that are healthy, clean and rich in wildlife. With help from The Water Management Alliance, the once incised river channel has now been opened out creating a more natural profile to the bank. The addition of wood into the river channel will help scour and clean the gravel bed, improving habitat for invertebrate and fish communities, including the brook lamprey seen along the reach.
Livestreams at Blickling and Felbrigg
As part of our work to bring the diverse acoustic habitats of the River Bure catchment to new audiences, live audio streams have been set up in woodland, close to the Scarrow beck on the Felbrigg Estate Norfolk, and on the Blickling Estate. You can listen live for free at any time of the day or night at https://bit.ly/RiverlandsFelbrigg and https://bit.ly/RiverlandsBlickling
Riverlands Riffle Installation
Working with Sound Artist Mike Challis we’ve created Bure Riffle, an interactive, immersive sound and light installation in The Strong Room at Felbrigg Hall. Mike collected sounds from the Upper Bure River and its tributaries to celebrate the diversity of nature in the area, including birdsong, barking roe deer and rippling water. The room has a beautiful double curved ceiling and Mike was inspired to use this as a projection surface. Working with the assistance of Pam Harling-Challis he has built a structure that recreates the river in the room using running water. The bed of the ‘river’ is a mirror and, by shining lights on the water, reflections are projected on to the ceiling filling the room with moving light patterns. Using gravel on the mirrored riverbed the flows of the river can be altered by visitors, creating a ‘riffle’. In a flowing stream carrying gravel or coarser sediments, a sequence of features including pools and riffles can form. Riffles are shallow accumulations of gravel organised into ribs with fast-flowing water. Pools are deeper, calmer areas where the riverbed is often made up of finer material such as silt.