OUTDOORS: River of life

“One appeared in the shallow water at my feet, flexed its new wings once, and took to the air … Its maiden flight ended in tragedy, however…”


Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley

For so long those great Atlantic depressions have been sweeping in upon us, so that we might be forgiven for wondering which of the seasons we are supposed to be in. One moment we look out at clear blue skies and entertain thoughts of woodland walks and trips to the beach, and the next we find the roof closing in above our heads as that restless wind drags yet another storm cloud to smother our hopes and further staunch the stuttering flow of early summer.
But late last week there came a lull in the wind, so that the leaves hung still and insects emerged from the lee of the hedge to fly about in the evening air. Among them were hordes of needle-nosed mosquitoes, each one hungry for bloodletting. They hovered in an eager swarm above my head as I made my way down to the river. There, grateful for a proper break from the wind and rain, thousands upon thousands of olives, beautifully delicate up-winged flies, were gathering for their nuptial dance.
The olives’ dance may be captivating for us, but for them, as well as this being a dance of life, the occasion for the next generation to be produced, it is also a dance of death, for the act of reproduction is fatally exhausting for them all, without exception. They rose and fell as a great grey wave at the tail of each pool and at the head of the next, each individual striving to attract a partner and a mate. Yet there were so many, and all identical. How could one be chosen from such an innumerable multitude?
For so many days they had been hatching in droves, a clever miracle replicated time and time again. Beneath stones on the river bed, amid the silt around them, and among the profuse growth of water weed, ugly grey-brown and green grubs had been stirring and shifting uneasily as their time drew near, until some primeval instinct urged them from the comparative safety of their underwater lodging and drove them up towards the light. They were vulnerable as they moved through the water column and many disappeared into the jaws of waiting trout. Once aloft many others fell prey to the wagtails, warblers and other birds that had gathered for the feast.
One appeared in the shallow water at my feet, flexed its new wings once, and took to the air as if it had been doing this all its life. Its maiden flight ended in tragedy, however, as the insect faltered momentarily and fell back to the stream. It righted itself and was about to take off once more when a sudden splash signalled its end.
As well as making an extraordinary spectacle for ourselves, these mass hatches of olives provide rich pickings for many species of birds, most of which will have somewhere between four and a dozen hungry mouths to fill. The grey wagtail has four in the nest she built into the stonework of the road bridge, as does the blackbird, which chose an old, honeysuckle-covered tree stump for her home. The coal tit has her family hidden in a deep crack between two boulders; who knows how many youngsters are within?
Each of these birds has its own specific way of hunting. The wagtail works along the river bank, taking insects from the stones and sometimes hovering cleverly to take them in flight.  The blackbird much prefers worms, but finds an abundance of fallen insects on the pasture. She gathers them by the beakful and rushes to and fro with hardly a pause. The coal tit goes repeatedly to the same corner, where she finds her store of food continually replenished, and all around there are others sharing in the harvest, with none of them getting in the way of the others.
Such days bring opportunity for us too. I had that trout marked, and sent a cruel hook of cold steel crudely wrapped about with a feather from the throat of a bird over his head. He came to it on the first cast and went leaping for his freedom, but died under a symphony of summer flies. Two pounds and a bit. Another memorable day.