It looks like a great white egret (Ardea alba) has made a home for itself in my local stretch of the Río Grande. This is a really strikingly beautiful bird and a bit of a rarity around these parts. My “Birds of Iberia” just lumps it with the miscellaneous “other birds” that are thrown in a loose pile between the main text and the index. It has nothing at all to say about it beyond describing it dismissively as an “accidental.” If my encounter with it was similarly described as accidental I would have to say it was a very happy accident! View full article »
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One of the one hundred and twelve thousand reasons I go fishing is that I manage to grab a bit of solitude when I´m out there creeping along the river bank. In truth I would normally expect to have the river completely to myself but for the usual suspects who tend to hang out there – the egrets and herons and and all the the bugs and weeds and shrubs and fishes. View full article »
For whatever reason plans seem to go in alphabetic order. You might give Plan A a whirl and if there is no mileage in it, then it´s time for Plan B. This evening on the river I got as far as Plan C. View full article »
I fished on Christmas Eve with my son Leo and Johan Terblanche and, as we headed out to the river, I was quietly optimistic about our prospects. I had made an exploratory visit a couple of days before and had managed to extract a gypsy barbel from the Río Grande and the river looked good. It was running clear and there were a few fish around. View full article »
For a few years I have been dabbling in stand up comedy and have performed a few bits and pieces in various staff and PTA shows. People have been kind enough to suggest I might have a bit of a knack for this kind of thing and so I thought I might step up to the plate and try to do a bit of stand up in the “real world”. So I managed to enlist myself as one of three warm up acts before three headline professional UK comedians who are touring the coast. This all took place last Saturday night in a nightclub in Benavista during their inaugural comedy night.
What a dumb idea that was! View full article »
I´m a pretty crap bird watcher if I am to be completely honest. I did try some years back to record in that back of diary I was given at work to faithfully list the species I came across here in Spain. The list ran to more than 40 species when the diary disappeared and I became distracted by other things. No doubt it will resurface one day. View full article »
Today I had some good news. My ancient car managed, against all odds, to convince some ITV inspector that it is roadworthy. After a terrifying periodic inspection it was given a clean bill of health and the man gave me a sticker to say that the car was fit tor use until the 27th of December 2019.
I have a fish tank in my lab which is a constant source of interest to the students I teach. Frankly, they spend more time watching the fish swimming around than they ever do listening to me. There used to be a much-admired crayfish in there which would astound everybody by periodically shedding its exoskeleton and looking like it was dead before appearing from behind a wooden log.
What a party trick that was! View full article »
I was wondering if I could ask favour? As you may know my book Dry River was published in 2015 as a hardback (it can be bought in this form by following a link on the hoe page of this blog) but Paul Morgan, the publisher and bookseller, was kind enough to allow us to make an eBook version. This version is like the original but the paintings which illustrate it have had to be reduced in size. The only other change is a small alteration to the “running order” of the chapters. I must thank my wife Catriona for making the file conversion (she wouldn´t let me re-write the acknowledgments to say this). She also put together this blog initially and then said to me “I have put together a blog and called it Fishydreams. Now all you have to do is go ahead and write!” View full article »
We´ve had some hard rain here recently and I thought I might take a look on the river on Sunday to see how it was clearing up. As usual I had the rod in the back of the car but thought it unlikely that I would be be taking it out. I live close to the confluence of two rivers, the Río Grande and the Río Guadalhorce and after heavy rainfall it tends to be the Río Grande that clears up sooner. So on Sunday I went to take a look at it in the hope it might have recovered sufficiently to offer me a chance to fool a barbel or two. View full article »
