What a month July turned out to be as the dry warm spell continued into a heatwave that lasted for most of the month. The river level was down as low as it has been in a long time and the water temperature was touching 70 up at the rod beat!
The bright sunshine and warm water is not the best conditions for the anglers out on the river, which has resulted in catches being down a bit for the month but perseverance can pay off.
For all that, the Activity Centre has been very busy again this month and it was good to see so many people out enjoying all the activities on the water.
Along the river banks there was more new colours out again this month as the succession of wildflowers continue to come through
from the scarcer common marsh orchid, to all the usual favourites like the purple loostrife, rebbecia, bellflowers and balsalm,
certainly plenty there for all the bees and butterflies to enjoy. There has been a lot more wasps about this summer too, and we have had to be a bit more careful on the grass cutting lately as we are coming across more wasp nests than usual!
With all that heat we have had this month the rowan berries on the trees are fairly ripening up just now.
The seals have been more active in the estuary of late, and the salmon are showing more than they usually do at this time of the season. It was towards the end of the month when the weather finally broke and the rains came
it didn’t last for too long at times but it was certainly heavy enough, there was some localised flash flooding in places but that passed quickly and the short quick rise that occurred in the river level was soon settling back again.
Dago