It certainly was April Fool's Day. Tim and I were working on the Tamar yesterday morning, getting the riverbank back into fishable order after the winter floods, and there was a swallow. I looked again, expecting someone in a Jester's outfit to be playing it on a bit of nylon, but no, it really was a swallow.
The sun was out but the bitter east wind cut like a knife. Just briefly, while digging silt out of a flight of steps, in a very sheltered spot, I shed my coat, and contemplated shedding my jumper. Standing back in the wind on top of the bank admiring my work, I was glad I didn't.
Down beside the water, in the sun and out of the wind, new growth of nettles and celandines was thrusting hopefully upwards. A pair of grey wagtail flitted about, hoping for a hatch of fly, rather like the anglers. On Easter Saturday we saw a peregrine carrying some unfortunate songbird, being given serious grief by a pair of ravens.
There does seem to be some faint hope of this present arctic blast moving elsewhere by next week. The trout and the anglers will all be very grateful. David Pilkington.
