My brother Sean and our old angling buddy Mark have just completed their annual pilgrimage to Lough Arrow in search of brown trout. They do this every year but, unfortunately, I am never able to join them for reasons of work and geography. In dribs and drabs they have been sending over information, mainly in the form of Whatsapp messages and emails with attached images and I am piecing together them together. I asked them if I could write a few words about their adventures on this blog and they graciously consented, possibly because they thought that if I said anything they did not approve of nobody would be likely to read it!
Continue readingArchive for May, 2025
There is a lough halfway up a mountain that we simply call the “Mountain Lough”. The word “lough” is overstating things a little because it is nothing like the expansive bodies of water you might first imagine when you think of the loughs of the west of Ireland. I guess we are even overstating things when we say it is on the flank of a “mountain” because it would not stand out in the general topography of this landscape as anything particularly worthy of note. It is high enough, though, to sap the strength from your legs as you climb the boggy slope and your boots sink into the sphagnum moss as though you were making your way over a giant sloping sponge. The climb will certainly take enough of your strength to make you stop once or twice to take in some air and this gives you a chance to turn your back to the mountain and, if the skies permit, to look out over vast tracts of green fields and the reflected silver of other small loughs and, distantly, the river Shannon.
Continue readingIt turns out that there was a perfectly good explanation for why the cat we came across this morning looked decidedly odd. It was not a cat at all. It was a mongoose! The dogs and I came across this thing at dawn this morning as we ambled along a camino. We often to head out early, the three of us, and manage to avoid any cyclists or people or cars and we can enjoy the campo, sometimes in the moonlight, before the world begins to stir.
Continue readingWhen we were away at Doñana last month I was asked by my students what my favourite bird was and I found it hard to answer because there are two that are vying for that particular position. One of these is the European Bee-eater and the other is the Red-necked Nightjar and at this time of year they both turn up on our doorstep.
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fishydreams 