The beautiful river Windrush runs along one side of the dovecote and its health affects the variety of wildflowers, birds and water creatures that live here. Two Naunton volunteers, trained by the Riverfly Partnership ( https://www.riverflies.org ), have taken on the important work of monitoring the river’s water quality. Naunton Dovecote is now one of the sites providing data back to The Riverfly Partnership, who save and map the data from hundreds of sites across the UK.
At regular intervals, they sample the river and the populations of the various types of riverfly are estimated. Riverflies are the ‘canaries’ in our rivers, and their numbers change in response to pollution, agricultural runoff, flow and climate change amongst other pressures.
The monitoring focuses on 3 key groups of riverflies that are at the heart of the freshwater ecosystem and are a vital link in the aquatic food chain. Click any of the 3 riverfly group names below to see their fascinating life cycle:
