An Ungrateful Owl and Hurricane Moss

Apologies for the tardiness regarding regular posts on this site but for two weeks we have been battered and held fast in the grip of Hurricane Moss.

Currently around six square feet of wall paper is missing from the kitchen wall. I ventured out into the garden one day last week and found the precious Sky remote control teetering on the edge of the pond.

Sitting down in the kitchen for a fine lunchtime repast of Jacket potato corned beef and sauerkraut.

There I said it, I'm a big fan of European fermented cabbage, deal with it.

Anyway, mid cabbage, in marches Moss with my ipad in his mouth.

Called to the door to receive fish destined for the smoker, I returned to the kitchen to find half of the dirty cutlery removed from the dishwasher.

We receive regular quizzical glances from Otis that seem to say "Why this?"





Yesterday things took a piratical turn as Moss raided the dishwasher and put in a few laps of the sofa with a sharp knife between his teeth.

We have also broken new ground with regard to personal grooming and while some may enjoy having the dead skin nibbled from their feet by fish each evening I have the hair plucked from nasal and aural cavities by a labrador.


As I write, he has just finished forging new routes through our small garden and is now chewing the fridge door.

In Avian news the Owl has gone. We gave him his last piece of chicken fillet (This bird has enjoyed significantly better cuts of meat than I have during his two week sojourn chez de Cani) popped him in the hedge by the vegetable garden where he hung around for five minutes before taking flight without so much of a thank you, best wishes or chin chin.

Uncivil birds Owls.

We have many butterflies and bees

and hundreds of damsel flies dance about the fringe throughout the day.

The June weed cut was the heaviest it has been for some years. There can't be much weed left in the upper Dever and last weekend we had a bit of a moment when the hatch on the house became blocked and the millstream rose slowly as I gave battle with a cut willow limb that had become jammed in the culvert that passes under the road. Communication between keepers is key during a heavy weed cut and we were very grateful for the many "heads up" from upstream regarding weed on its way.

I've known heavier cuts, but with ranunculus in flower weed has been cut with an eye to possible low water conditions in July and August as once ranunculus flowers its rate of growth is reduced. We may need some bars of weed later in the summer to maintain depth. Fish are increasingly fickle now the business of mayfly is done with small and brown a reasonable guide to which fly to put on during the day with a few drawn to increasing numbers of sedge in the evening.

Oh yes, Bake off - The Professionals (Sunday night C4)



Why no Bodie and Doyle and that goto guy for "parsimonious Scot" whose name I forget off the Fine Fare advert?

This week I was once again required to give an account of my movements to a gathering of village elders. As ever, a difficult crowd who thankfully no longer throw fruit with the vigour that they once did. You know it's time to wrap up the show when they start talking among themselves which happened after around forty minutes this year.

Recent rumination while swishing a scythe centred around the current drive for further river restoration projects on the chalk streams, much of which centres around bank re profiling, making the river wiggle and riffle and tipping lots of gravel into deeper reaches.

All noble stuff and boy aren't some trumpets blown hard by some once the work is complete and brown trout are found to be present because that is the fish that is the chief driver behind the work.

I have a lot to thank Salmo Trutta for.

My principle source of income relies on Brer Brown Trout being on good form and present in numbers. But wasn't one of the main criticisms of chalk stream management in the last quarter of the 20th century that it all became to "troutcentric" Put simply, if it wasn't a trout it was coming out.

Now before any keyboard warriors brim full of internet enlightenment get in touch. I'm not knocking river restoration work, there is undoubtedly some good work going on at the moment, but what about other species of fish native to the chalk streams. A chap in fine fleece and cutting edge walking shoes once suggested that we heap a hundred tonnes of gravel into the hundred yards of deeper water upstream from the fishing hut to create a faster streamier stretch. The notion has some merit for the brown trout but the stretch also plays host to a number of big roach, perch and pike who may not be too enamoured with a shallower stream and would be displaced and biodiversity is reduced. We have an increasing number of anglers visit during the winter to target this species along with the grayling. If those species are displaced we lose those anglers who are stakeholders in the chalk stream environment and subsequently have an interest in its welfare.

Well done for the river restoration work, but let's not get carried away and throw hundreds of tonnes of gravel into every deep slow reach of this river system.

It's just a thought.