Mr Paterson, who often comes into make sure our 130 (we started with 135 but some have sadly died so we have round about 130 now), now newly turned parr, salmon are healthy. But on Thursday 7th May he came in for a very special visit. Mr Paterson can make a salmon fly. Salmon flies are a special hook that look like a fly so the fish is attracted to it. They usually have wings, body and tails made from feathers that are wound on with special string. He told us some of the history of fly fishing and the tools he used. Some of the feathers he used were from geese, pheasant and peacocks. The tools he used to make the fly were a fly tying vice, bobbin holder, hackle pliers, bees wax and scissors. He first showed us the main wire which had a double hook. He put on feathers to make the body and tail. He wrapped round wire to hold them in place. When he finished he showed us some of his tiny trout flies. The most complex fly was the Jock Scot by Megan Boyd. Everyone enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot.
During the holidays I have been checking the fish, I thought you might like to see how the salmon are progressing. Following Mr Paterson’s instructions I turned the temperature up to 6 degrees on Monday.
We are creating a model of the lifecycle of the salmon. We have made clay smolts as part of our understanding of atlantic salmon. We are making eggs, parr, alevin, smolts and fry out of different materials. The challenge is trying to make the different stages of the lifecycle to scale. We decided to make the smolts out of clay.
The salmon are being kept at 6.0 degrees and if the temperature goes up to 12 degrees they die. During the power failure there was no power in the aquarium so the temperature went up to 11.2 degrees because the cooler was off. It was 4.0 degrees when we first got the salmon eggs from the River Ythan Trust, when we moved it up to 5.0 degrees they changed to alevins faster because the temperature was higher.The temperature has gone up so they can grow faster.
We have been lucky enough to be selected to take part in a salmon in the classroom project, you can find out more about this here. We were very excited to receive around 130 salmon eggs about three weeks ago. They travelled by car in an insulated box filled with ice from the West Coast of Scotland. The eggs were carefully poured onto the surface of the water and they gently landed amongst the gravel on the bottom of the aquarium. We are going to use this blog to share our learning.
Eyed eggs the size of a pea
Methlick Primary School and Udny Green School learning in partnership with Ythan River Trust
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