May month started off with a steady river and reasonable weather for the time of year. It was a dry month overall apart from the weekend of the 23rd/24th where we had it wet and stormy, there was a quick rise on the system of a few feet but it soon settled back down again.
We had our first House Martin back with us on the 1st which was good to see, and the first swifts were spotted on the 14th too. A lot of the birds about the place are all feeding young now and up at the fishery it was good to see some cygnets out on the water with the parent birds.
There are three young ones this year and hopefully they will do okay. There seems to be a few more ducklings about just now too which is better than last year was at this time.
The otter has been seen about the river a bit more the last couple of weeks,
and as the mercury climbed up to 26⁰C near the end of the month the bees were very busy round the hives.
It has mostly been grass cutting for the best part of this month with some strimming and hedge cutting too. There was more colour about the place as the Burnet rose
and wild Lupin came into flower.
After another month of working in isolation it was good to finally see some of the lockdown restrictions being lifted and as of the 29th it was possible for some of the anglers to get their rods dusted down again and get back out there fishing. Our Cargill rod beat and the Willowgate fishery are both back up and running again
with the social distancing rules still applying to everybody there should still be plenty space for everyone to enjoy a cast in safety. It was good to see our Cargill beat up and running again and fish being caught.
As another month ends on good weather and a settled river, hopefully things will keep improving for everyone.
Dago