The Red River.

Ah yes, the Red River, but first: some photos I might have added last time, but didn't, from the Farne Islands.

The Only Razorbill I Managed to Get in Shot.

Eider Duck...Just a Big Softie.

And I Am Sure No-one Will Mind Another Arctic Tern... I Didn't Realize That They Had Claws on Those Tiny Webbed Feet.

...And More Puffins.

So, back to the Red River.   I had heard about this river a while ago, its real name being the Medlock, but I had never seen it.   So I took a walk yesterday, as part of a keep fit project to go alongside the dieting.  Only seven more pounds to lose now, in order to reach my target. But every pound gets more difficult, as my body says "No more, that's enough" and my mind now has to fight back hard as it tries to override my gut's instincts. 

When walking, any signpost that reads "riverside walk" is likely to divert me, and yesterday, one such sign did just that.  I found myself on a long length of beautifully laid, Accrington Brick pathway. I followed it upstream.

 But it is not just the pathway that is composed of brick, the river bed itself, the channel, is made entirely in the same manner.  And the other bank has a second pathway, both pathways being about ten feet in width. Hence the "red" river.  By watching and timing a floating leaf, and comparing with my own known walking speed, I determined that the river, now at a fairly low level,  was flowing at about 7 mph.  

Far faster than is conducive to fish presence, even if the brickwork held any natural food.  There was nothing other than water in the channel, no weed, no shopping trolleys, no condoms. Anything in the channel would have been rapidly washed downstream. I don't doubt for a moment that, somewhere downstream, is a huge pile of rubbish of every description.  But the red river itself is the cleanest length of water I have ever seen.  Not one plastic bottle, not even a single football. Not that it does not get its share of rubbish passing through, as can be seen from this outflow pipe, largely blocked with sanitary product. 

Impressive Dry Stone Walling, with Almost Tropical Looking Vegetation.

The bricks on the curve at the interface between river bed and pathways have precisely tapered cross sections. Sculpted bricks to fit in place precisely. Alongside each pathway, one on each bank, are 8 to 12 feet high dry stone walls.  But they are built from huge stones, as much as three feet long and a couple of feet high. A fantastic example of dry stone walling.  Not content with that, at the back of the stones is more brickwork, strengthening the walls even more.  Wildlife was more or less absent, and apart from half a dozen grey wagtails, a species that appears to enjoy living on the edge, I only glimpsed one other bird, in the undergrowth nearby. I think it was a robin.  At various points old archways suggest bits of interesting architecture and tunnels that were once in use.

Nature Finds a Way.

 A few trees have long since invaded the walls, with heavy trunks and roots clinging into the narrowest of cracks. Graffiti artists have so far, apart from a single tag, completely ignored the place.  I should have been horrified by the whole reach, but it did have its own "atmosphere", which in itself was a fascination. And what terrific engineers those Victorians were!
At the end of the red bricks, was a short tunnel under a roadway, but no means was provided to climb up, and back out, of the brick valley, and I began to realize that this brick pathway was possibly...probably...certainly not the advertised "riverside walk". So I had to walk the whole way back, finding the gate I thought I had come through, was now locked.    Slightly worried, I continued downstream to the other end of the red brick road and found a second tunnel.   I also, fortunately, found another way back up the banking.    The red brick paths on either side of the channel are of course, just extensions of the river bed, and very definitely NOT the riverside walk, and with the river in flood those dry stone walls become the containing banks.   I looked up a bit of its history, the bricks being laid following a devastating flood back in 1872, during which the river level was so high, and the flow so great, that many tombstones and bodies were washed away downstream from out of the nearby cemetery.  If it is the same cemetery I saw, the nearest body would have been some 40 feet above the river bed. An impressive flood level for any tiny stream.

Old Arched Structure.

I read that some of the tombstones are still to be seen in the river far downstream. The downstream tunnel (or culvert) is some 600 yards long, flowing right underneath the car parks of Manchester City football club. Another man-made channel, but this time with an arched brick roof. It is one of quite a few subterranean sections of this river, before it finally joins the Irwell on the other side of Manchester city centre.   In 2013 a project was announced to remove all the red bricks, and the underlying concrete foundations, so as to re-naturalize the river. It was reported in the Guardian,  but I see no evidence of any work at all having been carried out.  In the mile long red section there are at most a couple of hundred missing bricks, each removal looking like the work of the river itself. But in general, there is no sign of any significant deterioration, and absolutely no signs of wear on any of those rock hard bricks, despite well over a century of river flow across them.  These 8 million bricks will weather a nuclear attack better than any cockroach.  The longevity and toughness of Accrington bricks led them to being used in some parts of the Empire State Building, and also in another building of rather less significance....my own house.   Above the bridge, at the upstream edge of the Red River, the channel looks far more natural, although its edges are still, in many places, constrained by stone or brick walling. And there are a few fish present here, I saw a small one rise.

I fished a very large water a few weeks ago.  The objective being, once again, tench.   I last fished it over 50 years ago, when I used to catch roach there. It was difficult fishing for a young lad then, long distance casting required to reach deep water, and then it was very deep, far deeper than my rod length, and the float fishing was thus; not at all easy.  Roach, but plenty of them was all I caught...maybe with the odd perch, but the water has, like many others, changed dramatically, and now has tench, a species unheard of in the water back then.  It is still rated a hard water by local anglers, and they may well be right. After forking out for three day tickets ( at a cost rather more than the old price of half a crown), I had just one tench, and a couple of small roach to show for my efforts.  The tench was somewhere between 4 and 5 pounds, I didn't weigh it, but the beast shown below, weighing a lot more, swam right across the lake as I fished.  A red deer, antlers still covered in velvet, and therefore probably still growing.

 In India I have had buffalo, elephant and crocodiles in my swim.  On the Shropshire Union Canal I once had a horse fall into my swim. Unfortunately it drowned.   But a full grown 14 point stag is a first for me.  Later, as I approached my van, he, and a dozen of his mates, in an all male group, blocked my path, being rather reluctant to get out of my way. I half expected to be charged by one or more of them, but it didn't happen. 

I Definitely Felt I Was Being Watched

Fishing wise, not much else to show. A few more tench, four grayling, half a dozen roach-bream hybrids, and two more small roach, these two being all I had caught during three failed sessions chasing bream.  But I was visited by this wonderful little grass snake.

So, a couple of bits of trivia to finish.  
I was quite amused by a sign on a camper van: 

"NO FOOLS LEFT IN THIS VAN OVERNIGHT".

And having watched a programme about the brain on TV, I was shocked to find out that BOTOX was no just a sort of plastic crack filler, as I had previously thought, but  a neurotoxin produced from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.  I suppose I might have guessed that the "tox" referred to a toxin, and maybe not that the "Bo" is derived from a form of botulism. But the very idea of injecting the most lethal neurotoxic known, into one's head, is just astonishing.   My son, a doctor, tells me it is only available by prescription in the UK, and that some doctors make a fair packet prescribing it for the clients of various Botox clinics, whose practitioners do not need any medical training.  Rather than filling in the cracks in the forehead, this stuff actually is locally paralyzing the flesh.  I wonder how many of the recipients of the treatment know just what it is that is being injected?  And surely someone could have come up with some far less dangerous, but equally effective, substance?

The various forms of such vanity treatments are continuing to diversify, but I was again incredulous when my lad told me that one of the latest male fads is a procedure to remove the wrinkles from the scrotum!  OMG...time to go fishing I think.         

Of Birds and Badgers....

Oh dear...I have been lazy and idle once again.   Not written anything for ages.   The paragraphs that follow were all written months ago, round about ten past Spring, and have lain fallow on the hard drive ever since, gathering dust...although any real dust in a hard drive would have spelled the death of any data on it.   My scribblings have instead just died of old age I guess. But here they are, exhumed from the coffin:
 River season approached...rather too fast for my liking.  It was almost an advantage NOT to have a whole slice of angling unavailable to me.   Even without the river, I felt I had too much to go at and too little time during which to tackle it.   Either I ignored all my life outside of angling or I missed  out on some things I really wanted to do.  Having ignored all other things, many years ago, I know it is not the ideal course to navigate...by far!  

Therefore, now that my full vista of waters is available,  I have done rather less with the tench than I had expected.  But I have fished a far greater variety of waters for the species than ever before, and the results, as I expected, have been equally variable.   The tench have varied in both colour and size.  Nothing huge, but some nice ones amongst them. Their colours, especially in fish taken from clear water, can be stunning, some with orange bellies, others very metallic green, and all having that super slippery feel to them.  Most have come to the float, and often when also fishing for crucian carp.  There is something very exciting about seeing a float slowly rise four or five inches,  and having the resultant strike hit something that is solid, and obviously NOT a crucian.    Having this happen near the lily pads that fringe the lake, using a light trotting rod, and similarly light tackle all adds to the experience.   I was sort of "told off" by a club bailiff this week.  He suggested, quite strongly, that I should be using at least 10 pound line, "because the fish are not shy", and "the deep reedbeds fringing most of the lake are a problem, with many anglers losing fish in them".  But I just cannot fish like that, I am old fashioned maybe, and like to think that the fight is a two way scenario, not one that I KNOW I will win.  Some of the scraps I have had, have therefore been a bit heart in mouth stuff, especially knowing that, if properly entangled in those lily pads I might also lose an expensive, custom built float.  I speak to many anglers who take the view that, once hooked, the fish MUST be landed at all costs. And so they use tackle that to me seems far, far too heavy.   I don't lose many fish myself to breakages, no matter how caused, and unless that changes I will continue to fish my own way, using whatever tackle I feel is suited.    But I will admit that, with a good tench on the line, and in the lilies, I have occasionally wondered whether that 13 foot trotting rod, three pound line, half pound test curve, the one I use for crucians, grayling and the like, is actually a bit under gunned for the job.  But I continue to extract the fish from the pads, if with difficulty, and so continue to use it. 

    But the tench fishing has not been without its problems, and I have had about four very good ( but unseen) fish, shed the hook well into the fight.   I feel this is unusual for tench, their thick rubbery lips should retain almost any hook hold.   But I have changed my hooks this year, to a model with a much finer wire and a micro-barb.   I don't venture any final opinion to the barbed/barbless arguments.   I feel that an experienced, caring angler should be able to extract a barbed hook without creating any damage to the fish.  It might take experience, but it is perfectly feasible to unhook a fish well.   I don't hold with another common belief either, that barbless hooks move around in the mouth of the fish, as it is played, therefore causing damage.  I see no evidence for that at all.    I do think though, that match anglers, who let's face it, need to fish quickly, should be using barbless hooks at all times.  For matches I think they should be compulsory, matchmen do not have time to battle a hook out, and so the more unscrupulous may well damage some of their fish.  But using barbless should enable them to extract the hook very speedily indeed, with no risk of damage.  

   But what of my problem?  Well, I have been wondering whether, in a long fight with a good fish, a fine wire hook might just cut its way through the flesh.  I need to study the hook holds in my landed fish, to search for any signs that the hook is acting like cheesewire.     I like these hooks, and would like to keep using them, but may find I have to revert in the future.   Certainly, to use them with ten pound line, and with a rod capable of applying that kind of tension, I might well be damaging fish...and would certainly be straightening a few hooks too.  In my opinion, if you straighten a hook, then the line you are using is too strong for that hook, and I am still surprised that hooks do not come with a recommended line strength.. Hook/line combinations can be tested easily at home before use, but you must try to emulate a genuine hook hold. Putting the hook point on a block of wood and pulling on the attached line  is not a good way to do it, as most hook holds are on the bend of the hook, not its point...another reason why the barbed/barbless argument is often a lot of people talking without thinking,  without any real knowledge of what is actually happening down at the hook.   

I don't like being TOLD how I must fish, preferring to work things out for myself.  I will be ignoring that bailiff's comments for the moment.  Many of the clubs' rules are a little unreasonable.  I fish waters where you are banned from taking any glass or cans onto the water.  The theory is that with no cans in the tacklebag, none get thrown in the bushes,  In practice, the kind of angler that is likely to drop litter, is the kind who will ignore the rules, take his 6 pack of Stella anyway, and then throw the cans into the reedbeds before the bailiff sees them.     Every winter the departing greenery reveals the rubbish thrown into those out of sight spots. And often, out of sight means out of reach too. The trouble with anyone writing about litter, is that those reading it will already be the converted.  It matters not how eloquent we are in discussing and bemoaning the subject, if none of the litter throwers ever get to see our output.  Only the stick is likely to work, but too few seem willing to wield it.    

Here endeth the stuff I wrote months ago.   This that follows is all new, although the events inspiring the text may not be so.

I have continued in the main to fish small waters for tench and crucians.  I could have equally said "fished waters for small tench and crucians, for apart from a few six pound tench early season I have had none over about five pounds since. But as I have often said, size does not overrule everything.   Catching 2 and 3 pound tench on light line, fishing near thick lilies in swims also bordered by trees that have fallen into the lake is quite adrenalin inducing.   Trying to turn a male tench, determined to reach snags only a yard away, on a centrepin, light rod and that three pound line takes skill, and is often more exciting that reeling in a leger caught 7, 8, 9 or even 10 pound tench from a swim where the only chance of losing a fish is through a hook pull. So: lots of tench, a goodly number of crucians, some of them over two pounds, and stray rudd, roach and carp have filled the sessions so far.  Less sessions that usual, for we have had a couple of relatives from the Far east visiting, and so I have been allocated taxi duties, and tourist guide duties.  Some walking in the Lake District. We circumnavigated Buttermere, upon which my wife asked whether it was called "Buttermilk, or Buttercream?"   Oh well!   Earlier in the day we had walked most of the way around Crummock Water.    All the way THINKING that it was Buttermilk.     It was thus a very long day and quite exhausting.

 I was fairly well bored by Hadrian's wall and a couple of its hill forts. But one trip I would highly recommend to anyone in July is the Farne Islands. Seabirds in vast numbers as well as grey seals, gave me a good opportunity to play with the camera. Three thousand or so incredibly graceful  Arctic terns that completely ignored us, allowing ultra close approach, unless we ventured too near a nest with eggs, in which case they dive bombed us, attacking the head.  This sent my wife and guests running for cover, with only myself being daft enough to stay still and suffer the onslaught. Probably my only chance to get attacked in this way, so I was determined to enjoy it.  They drew blood from my scalp... through my hat!  But beautiful creatures.   With such tiny red feet, which is, I suppose, indicative of how rarely they need to use them.

Arctic Tern

 

Plural.

With Young

And how on Earth do puffins manage to catch seven or nine sandeels in their beak, without the fish wriggling free, or being dropped?  A friend said he believed that they held them under their tongues, thus releasing the beak for the next sandeel to be caught. Obviously this beakful is intended for a chick or it would have been swallowed, but I was surprised that the bird was just standing around, almost waiting for a neighbour to steal them.  I can only guess that the bird had forgotten where its burrow was.  Maybe it had some age related problem...I saw a program that said the oldest UK puffin was about 38 years old, and that they often live to be 30 plus.

Puffins.

The Somewhat Unfortunately Named Shag With its Dramatic Green Eye

Deep Throat.

Guillemot

Black Legged Kittiwake with Young..

All of the seabirds were astonishingly tolerant of the close presence of visitors to the islands, luckily for them for tourists were present in quite large numbers. The National Trust keep a close watch on the place ( maybe aided by the RSPB).

Having returned home, with the photography bug somewhat rejuvenated, it was time to have yet another try to get a badger in the frame.   As an angler I see badgers more often than most , but trying to photograph them has always been fraught and has never produced any good results, apart from one that I caught asleep by the roadside once.   But this week's efforts have borne very ripe fruit.

Old Brock

With a Stray Fox.

Male, Female?    Female, Male?  

The badgers were very tolerant of the camera flash, even the autofocus pre-flash, which lights up for at least a second.    they did show some nervousness, but only when they had picked up a large item of food, such a as piece of bread.   When taking peanuts they ignored the presence of the camera, which was no more than four feet away, completely.    I was a few yards further back, with a remote camera trigger.   One last tip for night observation, before I sign off.  I was surprised to find that using ordinary binoculars (8 x 30) at night, actually made the view so much better. I had always assumed that they would have magnified, yet dimmed, the image.  Something I had simply accepted, rather than actually thinking about the optics involved.

More Birds Than Fish

Well, it was time to take my wellies back to the Wye. And why not?   It is a long trip, but I

The Wye

determined, this time, to be there as the first light hit the river.  Most of the trip was motorway, and in darkness.   Far too many heavy goods vehicles for my liking, as I remain nervous of them still, after my near-death crash a couple of years ago.   Sometimes, when one travelling at 60 mph passes another moving at 59.9, they can block both inside lanes for minutes.  If I therefore have to pass them both I find it quite unnerving.     Most of the time I sit at 60 mph myself to reduce interaction with the trucks to a minima, but I don't like to be too near the trucks, so occasionally have to pass and find a new space between them.  Eventually I left the final exit ramp, and had only three or four miles still to cover.  As I nearer the river the roads became narrower, eventually becoming a single track, with grass growing down the middle.  Rabbits scattered every few yards as my headlights disturbed them. One of them did not move, but stayed sitting in the middle of the road.  I soon saw that it was no rabbit, but an owl.  It stood in the road, no prey with it, looking at my lights.   After 20 seconds or so it flew up and into a tree above my head, where it stayed...stayed until about a second before I was ready to click the camera shutter.
I am fairly sure it was a tawny own.  Definitely not a barn owl or little owl.

Sand Martins Nesting in  Pipework

I reached the river a couple of minutes later, parked up and headed for the deep swim, hoping to make fresh contact with the lost fish from last week.  I soon had a chub in the net, a fish of something a little under three pounds.  From the angling perspective, all then went silent. The river was even lower than last week, and much clearer too. Not so much as a twitch followed the chub, and I spent a lot of time watching the swallows and sand martins.   The sand martin is, in my opinion, the ultimate, low over the water, flier.    I didn't bother trying to photograph one, but will add a photo I took three or four years ago.

Green Woodpecker: At  100 yards Plus.

The green woodpeckers continued to mock me, several of them were "knocking about", flitting from tree to tree, occasionally hammering at the wood, but always obscured by branches or by a leaf or two.  I nearly flattened the camera battery, hoping to be ready when one finally  posed for me.   None did.   Very late on, one landed on the footbridge, some 150 yards downstream, and just for the hell of it I put the camera on maximum optical zoom and took a couple of shots. Applying maximum digital zoom to the image I could indeed see the red and the green of the bird, but distance and the sheer obstructiveness of the bird meant that this was the very best I could do, the much magnified image being over pixillated..   Another day, another time perhaps.

Female Demoiselle

I did take this photo of a female blue banded demoiselle.  Not a trace of blue on the females. I didn't manage to get a photo of one last week, so as to be able to show the differences between the sexes.

My hope of a fish rose as the evening neared.  A few chub raps started to up the confidence levels a little, but all were too fiddly to strike at...not that I didn't try one or two for luck.  No such.  As the last half hour of legal fishing approached I finally hit a better pull, and was playing a barbel.  A nice enough fish at about seven pounds, and a quick re-cast gave me that extra hope.   The farmer drifted by, and asked if I had caught.  Told him about the barbel, and, remembering him from last week, mentioned my only having 30 minutes of daytime fishing left in which to catch a second.  He replied "Yes, it is already half past nine," and I was left in no doubt that he was actually making damn sure I did not intend to overstay my allotted time.  No more bites, so I packed up and drove, via a chip shop, to another stretch where I would be allowed to night fish.    Got some sleep, intending to fish from mid-day the next day.   Instead I finally decided, on

Egret

waking up, to fully check out the stretch by walking along it.   Three other anglers fishing, all convinced that the low water was causing their overnight blanks. I was tempted to agree with them.  Buzzards circled overhead, and an egret vied for my attention as it perched in a tree opposite. The only other bright moment was when three Canadian canoes full of topless young ladies, paddled past on a "hen do". Well, some were paddling, others were knocking the booze back. Although the camera did accidentally click a few times as they passed by, I am sure that you, dear reader, would have no interest in the resultant photos. So here is the egret instead.

Oddball Greylag?

 Nearby, amongst a group of Canada geese, was this odd individual.  I can only guess that it is some form of domesticated greylag goose,  escaped and gone wild.    It is neither one thing nor the other, so maybe there has been some reversion to type in its history.   Seeing the river so low, I decided to cut my losses, I was not expecting to catch much, even during darkness, and so journeyed part way back, determined to fish a tench water, one I have ignored for a couple of years.    The Wye is a fabulous river, and so very clean.  I don't think I saw a single item of human rubbish drift downriver all the time I was there. And the flotsam/jetsam piles of stuff left by floodwater, all seems to be completely natural in its origin: trees, branches, weed.   But sometimes I have to move on, and on this day, it was towards the tench.

Again it was to be more birds than fish. No fish were to dampen my landing net at the lake.  I only saw three fish break surface, one fairly early on, a hundred yards away: a carp.  And then nothing until, during a break in the rain, following a quiet night, I was packing up.  As I dismantled the last of my gear, two fish rose in my swim, right over my baited area, a carp and a tench.  

A Bunch of Proper Greylag Geese

Oh I was so tempted to rig up again, with the only fish showing being over my groundbait.  The lake is large enough for the fish to have easily avoided the area all night. Maybe they had just moved in?  But instead of staying I decided to punish myself for my poor performance on the trip, and go home.   Time by this stillwater was spent watching bats, reed warblers, terns, a group of at least fifty grey lag geese and an oystercatcher.   The sand martins and swallows of the river had been replaced by house martins and swifts. Most of these species will only pose for the cameras of the most highly paid professional photographers.  I tried my best but the results were not really worth the hard work.

The tern photo is also not the greatest, they were so fast and changed direction unpredictably, but as I have little ambition to become another David Bailey, who cares.   I'll keep trying for better photos, but am by no means confident of great success.

Terns and Tench

In my previous angling life, some 40 years ago, there were then, many differences to modern angling.  I feel that, back then, angling was still an artform.  Today most aspects of angling have been completely mechanised, so much of modern angling is dealt with by prescription:  DVDs, TV programmes, forums, websites, standardised tackle, "can't fail" baits, good tackle off the shelf.  There are far more, and far bigger fish around now.  Big fish in the 60's and early 70's were more or less reserved for the couple of hundred successful specimen hunters.  True: the odd good fish were caught by others, but not like they are caught these days.  Anyone these day can catch, and usually does catch, excellent fish.  Anglers today are far more knowledgeable, many back then were largely clueless, experienced many blanks, and, if they fished matches, were largely cannon fodder for the few match anglers who knew what they were doing.  With all the information available these days most anglers enjoy a great deal of success by simply riding the huge wave of information and canned experience that is so easily available to them. Angling has become a science, and I sometimes feel, one that has been dumbed down to almost GCSE level. Tick the right boxes and you will catch fish. Whether that is a good thing or not is left to the reader to debate.

To take a break of over 30 years from fishing, is to return to a different planet. A changed world where little in angling has remained unmoved.  So back in those days a specimen tench, especially in the North, was designated as a fish of six pounds.    Few fish of that size were caught, and it was only after ten years of big fish hunting that I finally snared my first six pounder: a fish of 6-8. I was well pleased, but it was to be the last fish I caught for over 30 years.  I felt that, with the big tench ticked off, my list of "target" sized specimen fish was complete.  There was nothing else to do but to try and catch up with a delayed, if not destroyed, social life.   If I had one word of advice for the modern young carp angler in his bivvy, it would be to ease off, to cut down on the fanaticism, to enjoy other aspects of life.  I suspect many young carp anglers do not know that there are women out there, somewhere.

I still feel that a six pound tench is a huge fish, my mind having being conditioned by fish that had grown to such sizes naturally, rather than being force fed by daily bait feeding by anglers.  So, mixed in with a number of blanks this year, have come quite a number of good tench. And, in a four week period, that old record of 6-8, which remained by personal best until a year ago, has been beaten no less than

eight times, with half of those eight fish being over 7 pounds.   A result that in the 60's would have been major angling news.  Nowadays it is taken with a pinch of salt.  I have been told by other anglers that my fish, taken this season, are better than my old fish,  but what they are effectively saying is that the fish from long ago have now been devalued.    The reverse is actually the case,  and that 6-8, and the big "fives" that I caught back then, remain in my mind as more significant captures.   I had to work far harder for them, and had to do it all myself...without the internet etc.  To appreciate that statement fully, you would probably have had to have been around the big fish scene 40 years ago.  There was no-one then, nearby, who could have offered any useful advice, for no-one I knew ever fished for tench, never mind for tench of any real  size.  Big fish have undoubtedly become far, far easier to catch than they were of old.  In 1970, to have aimed at catching a six pound tench, you would, in doing so, have branded yourself a "specimen hunter".  Today, whilst seeking fish of six and seven pounds I just view myself as a tench angler, or perhaps more accurately, an angler fishing for tench.

That is not to say I have not enjoyed catching these new bigger fish.  I have, and could certainly have had a fair few more of similar sizes had I spent the extra time on the bank.  Any tench is a gorgeous creature, a real fish shape, and a scrapper.    I feel privileged just to see one on the bank, and then love to see it swim off again.  None too pleased to see one male tench though.  It had been a relatively fine day, some light showers, and this continued into darkness.  Continued until the huge flash of lightning immediately above me, followed a second or so later by a huge thunderclap.  The rain, a minute later became torrential.  Tench are, it would seem, unfazed by thunder, and this hard fighting male bit a few seconds after the heavy rain started.  I got very substantially drenched.

Of course, it was not all about the fishing.  There were birds to be watched as well.  I had a couple of terns plying their way across the water for much of the time. I was unable to get any decent photos of them and the photograph is one I took last year, and I think it is a common tern.  I can never decide whether this bird was flying gracefully or in an ungainly manner.  With every flap of its wings the body would go up and down: most odd.   The terns the other day flew rather differently, they seemed to have faster wing beats, and the body was more stable in flight.  They repeated spiralled down to take minuscule items from the water surface.  I don't know if the birds this year and last year were of the same species.   I have a suspicion that they were different...only a suspicion, mind you. Not good enough yet with my ID of terns. 

Blurred Oystercatcher

A couple of oyster catchers also flashed up and down the lake, frequently landing on an island.  Too fast to photograph effectively, so apologies for the blurred bird,   but I do wonder if they occasionally nest inland?

Reed Bunting

 Two other species that I have not often come across before provided more entertainment.  Reed buntings and reed warblers.  Noisy little birds the warblers. Incessant chirruping. Both birds perching on wobbly reed stalks for much of the time.

Reed Warbler, singing, or perhaps warbling.

I am fairly sure that both species in the reeds were male, because both were singing. The warbler certainly had a nest in the reeds, for it occasionally disappeared into the reedbed, always at the same spot. I did not want to go any closer, for fear of disturbing the nest.  To do so would have meant my wading through the reeds.