The good weather continued into the 1st day of May, but we were soon into a cooler spell of dry dull weather that helped the river level drop back another foot or so in the first fortnight.
A lot of the birds are sitting tight on their nests now, but we are seeing a few ducklings out on the water up at the fishery, but a lot of them are being quickly picked off by the various predators that are never far away. I did come across a hen pheasant with a big brood of young, well into double figures and well camouflaged in the long grass.
On the 20th I saw my first swift of the summer, hopefully a sign of good weather to follow! There was a bit more activity out on the river with the odd boats and canoes passing by, but no more coasters so far this month.
Work time is pretty much taken up with grass cutting now, a routine of strimming, and tractor and ride on mower work filling in most of the days in a week. We did get up to the rod beat for a cast one evening this month, it was good to see the river again up there and the all different habitat from the tidal estuary areas where I am based, but there were no fish to report being caught that night!
By mid month we had a bit of a heatwave for a few days when the rising mercury was breaking records up and down the country, but thankfully it let up a bit before everything got too dry.
The wild poppies are appearing in a few places now, and the Leopard’s bane is quite strong in all the usual spots where we are used to seeing it. The Burnet rose is doing well in some of the hedge rows just now, but for all the colour and variety of wild flowers that we see,
we still try to stay on top of the giant hogweeds that appear in various locations along the waterside, usually a spot spray or the hedge bill does the trick.
We were well into the month when the cygnets hatched out at the fishery pond, the parent swans soon had them all out on the water enjoying the good spell of weather we were having.
Things did change by the last few days as it got cooler, wetter and it had got quite windy at times. The river level was just over the one foot mark as the month drew to a close.
