Migrating Swifts and a bent rod.

 Having not run the moth trap, overnight, I was rather lazy and didn't get up until gone 09.00 hrs. Despite the overnight wind and rain, there were a couple of hanging baskets and four planters which still needed to be watered purely because of the wind direction. The wind was still rather brisk, from a SW direction and, as I was filling the watering can, a couple of Swifts passed overhead. Before I'd completed my task another three came over, headed in the same direction. Fairly high and certainly moving with some purpose, I still felt it might be worthwhile having a bash at grabbing a photo, or two. I was probably stood in the garden for a couple of hours, my final tally being seventy-three Swifts and a lone Swallow. Obviously this is nowhere close to an accurate assessment of the movement as birds were moving on a very broad front, thus will have been missed to the East and West due to the garden hedge and the bungalow roof obstructing my view.

This afternoon I took a drive down to the "Carp Puddle" just so I could bend a fishing rod. I managed just over three hours of angling, eleven Carp being drawn into the landing net during this time. Not a "double" amongst them, which was a little surprising but, the first fish, a small Common, did me right over. Just as I was removing the hook, it flipped and the hook was firmly embedded, deep into my right index finger. Boy, did that make me swear, yet I am certainly grateful for the "barbless" rule imposed by C&DAA or it might have been a whole lot worse? I packed up, an hour earlier than planned, purely because the 5 litre bucket of particle mix was empty. It was so good to be back on the bankside, a bent rod in hand, doing battle with scamps which have no intention of going into your landing net without a proper scrap.