A Source for Life
A Source for Life: there's water everywhere in Wales. Not only does it sustain wildlife, it's an integral part of the landscape. Our lakes, rivers and marshes are home to birds, fish and other creatures that we're familiar with – and more unusual species.
Iolo looks at the inhabitants of the wetlands and their place within the landscape.
A Cameraman's Diary - Lamprey filming - freshwater
We were really keen to film these creatures as they sounded facinating and look prehistoric. We got information from Simon Evans, at the Wye and Usk Foundation, that they will only be spawning under Boughrood bridge for a week or two at the beginning of June. So we had a short window. John and I went to film them on a sunny day not sure what we were going to be able to get.
more »
You can see them straight away from the bridge in pale patches of gravel where they have moved stones to lay their eggs. We got the underwater camera ready and John waded out to near where the lampreys were and weighted the camera down.
Using a monitor attached by a long cable to the camera we could view the lampreys from the shore. We were amazed by how incredible these creatures looked close up and were surprised by the quality of the footage we were getting.
It was in part down to the fact that the lampreys were not bothered at all by the camera and even came right up to it, they were so focused on the job of moving stones and spawning.
We decided we could try and operate the camera manually as the lampreys didn’t seem to mind our presence. This meant we could get moving footage rather than a static shot and could follow the lampreys with the camera as they dragged the stones off. John spent about half an hour crouched in the water filming them and only afterwards did he realise that he had a hole in his waders!
« less
