I spent an hour or so up at the Tarn yesterday soaking up the warm sunshine and putting the world to rights with the assembled members.  It was a stunning morning once the breeze dropped away and at lunchtime there was a good hatch going on which prompted the resident rainbows to rise freely and take the dry fly.  The cygnets are growing strongly and are being given flying lessons.  So far this consists of a lot of effort and flap with little resulting upward movement, but the their true flight feathers have yet to develop fully so its really a triumph of enthusiasm over common sense.  Still, I guess that the main purpose of the exercise is to develop strong flight muscles and they certainly seem to be doing that.  As I walked down to the bottom end and approached the wildlife area I was met with a cacophony of shrill whinnying from the dabchicks.  Judging from the volume there must be a good number of these small birds resident at the Tarn now and they seem to have shifted home from the reeds at the top end possibly because the swans are still using the nest area here.

On returning to Newhouses I found that David M and his wife had dropped by and were talking to Sheila.  We repaired indoors and spent some considerable time discussing times past at Horton, the state of farming and much else.  I always learn a great deal from talking to David and the conversations we have frequently spark trains of thought and open up areas of enquiry that lead to a new awareness of the Ribble, our fishery and life generally at Horton.  For example it seems that last century an attempt was made to encourage members to record all that they observed during visits to the river.  The aim was to build a picture of the health of the fishery and the invertebrates that were present.  Very few returns were ever received fro members which surprised me as the general impression I had formed was that in times past members were much more involved both with each other and with their input to the management of the fishery.  I thought that our current failure to get members to record observations made during fishing trips was a modern phenomenon.  Seemingly not.

It's a good deal breezier this morning with grey skies and the threat of drizzle in the air so the Thursday brigade who chose to come up yesterday for a change made the right choice.

Ian