We had a succession of very heavy hail showers yesterday which put paid to invertebrate sampling.  It looks as if it might be a more settled day today with much less wind and more open blue sky.  So we will try again this morning.

I was stood in the kitchen early yesterday afternoon watching the birds at the feeders on the bird table.  The usual visitors were present; blue tit, great tit, dunnock, sparrow and blackbird.  suddenly from round the substantial wooden post supporting the table a large black and white head with red markings and a long bill appeared closely followed by the rest of a greater spotted woodpecker.  He or she spent some considerable time circling the post working out the best way of getting to the nuts and fat ball suspended from the table.  Clearly a great deal of thought was going into this and a number of strategies were tried.  Clearly these are quite intelligent birds and seem capable of reasoning and assessment.  Eventually it seemed to consider the whole thing not worth the effort and flew off much to the relief of the usual visitors who, throughout this performance were lined up in the clematis shouting disapproval.

As we approach the end of this 2008 season I ave been looking back at records for the past few seasons on the Tarn and comparing them with this seasons results.  I'm pleased to say that it looks to have been a very good one with the number of visits up on last year and the ratio of catch to visits up also.  This despite a dismal summer that made fishing a challenge right through the peak season.

Time to start planning for even greater success in 2009.

Ian