LAST week I was fortunate enough to spend some time working on Hurcott Pools and Wood nature reserve.

My chief job there was to adjust the fish stocks in the main pool. Hurcott pool has very shallow water with high levels of nutrients and a very silty bottom. All of this poses a threat to the wildlife of the pool.

The high nutrient levels make it easy for bacteria and other microbes to thrive and in doing so they take oxygen from the water. The silty bottom, which is easily stirred up by bottom dwelling fish, makes the water cloudy and opaque to sunlight meaning that there is not enough light for dense crops of aquatic plants. These plants would have added oxygen to the pool and provided food and habitat for a great variety of invertebrates.

Hence, the decision was made with the approval of both English Nature and the Environment Agency to remove a proportion of the bottom feeding fish to try and reduce the level of suspended silt particles in the water. A survey of fish stocks was first carried out then a fisheries contractor netted the pool and the carp and bream were removed. These fish were then sold onto commercial fishing lakes.

Not being a fisherman myself, I have had very few opportunities to see fish like this up close before. I was very impressed at the power and size of these animals. The largest fish removed was a 7kg carp. Whilst these animals are for from what you would call cute, they certainly have a very purposeful air to them and the patterns of their tough interlocking scales remind me of suits of armour.

The fish were not the only wildlife I encountered at the edge of the pool. At the end of the day I saw this years first frog emerge from hibernation. Watching it, I made a mental note to visit the shallow pools on Blake Marsh nature reserve. On a previous year I had witnessed many hundreds of frogs engaged in their wrestling match like spawn. I also saw my first wild flower of the year, a lesser celendine displaying its sunshine yellow bloom.

However, my strangest find was a small hoverfly. Usually the odds of successfully encouraging a hoverfly to walk onto and then stay on your finger long enough to allow you to have a really good look would be rather remote, as they are superbly acrobatic and rapid flyers. This hoverfly was obviously cold and sluggish though, as that is just what happened. No wonder really, as this particular creature is not meant to emerge until June.