Thursday 17th January saw the first trout eggs delivered to North Walls Community School. Jim Erskine, who has trained generations of Orcadian trout anglers, gladly took on the challenge of transporting the fragile cargo from the Kirbister hatchery to the Hoy school and explained all the mysteries of the trout life cycle to a captive audience. The journey can be a perilous one as the ova can be very vulnerable at certain stages. Once at the school, Jim was welcomed by a very enthusiastic group of pupils and staff who had prepared themselves for the demanding task of hatching eggs into little alevins and then releasing them in the local burn. If all goes well, the next two months should see the eggs, first showing eyes and then hatching into translucent orange alevins which will be losing their yolk sacs after a few weeks, ready to be released by mid-March.

Looking forward to reading how things are going!

Mr. Pietri