A couple of summers ago, before I began to write this blog, I joined a group of bird watchers on a trip into the Straits of Gibraltar in order to see what we might find by way of birds and cetaceans. We left Tarifa by yacht and spent some time in the straits, crossing to within spitting distance of the Morroccan coast. It was during the homeward leg of this trip that I was lucky enough to see a whale spout and when we approached, we chanced upon a sperm whale at the surface and had the rare privilege of taking a close look at it before it sounded and returned to the cold depths where it spends most of its life. Continue reading
Category: Natural history
I tend to use the car radio as a predictor of the quality of the fishing. If Kiss FM comes up with a string of decent tunes I feel confident that the fish will be biting and things are going to pan out just fine.
Today I slapped on the radio and out came Material Girl by Madonna. I should have just done a U turn there and then.
“Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me
I think they’re O.K.
If they don’t give me proper credit
I just walk away”
For Christ´s sake, what a load of crap! Continue reading
I am always hankering after a bit of fishing but extricating myself from domestic commitments is rarely straightforward. So it came as a pleasant surprise when Catriona more or less told me to go to the river yesterday evening. She and Leo had settled down to watch The Hobbit and realised that, having little interest in a watching a film I was likely to get bored and annoy them and so the best thing might be just to get rid of me. Fair enough! And this morning I just got up early, gave the dogs some breakfast and headed back to the river again.
One of the benefits of being on the river at the start or end of the day, apart from not being fried at this time of the year, is that there is always a chance of bumping into something interesting. This morning I came across two young foxes playing with one another just like a couple of puppies. I had been stalking carp in a shallow pool and the foxes just bounded down the opposite bank and played around for several minutes before one of them spotted me and they both vanished. Continue reading
It sometimes appears that the world conspires to keep the simple pleasures of life at bay, or at least that is the way things were beginning to appear to me. Sunday was the first time in three weeks or so that I had a chance to get out to the river to see if I could trick a few fish into ingesting one of the simple little nymphs I tie up at home. Continue reading
Every day I take a walk in the campo with my dog Bonita. She is getting on a bit now and is getting slow but we both enjoy this leisurely stroll. And we both take an interest too in sights and sounds and smells. Bonita specialises in the smells and I do the sights. About a week ago while we were out on an early morning walk we witnessed something pretty interesting although, frankly, I don´t think the dog took too much notice. Continue reading
It looks like the gypsy barbel are getting close to their spawning time. The males have prominent tubercles on their snouts, rather like carp develop, and so can be easily told apart from the females. Two of the three fish I took yesterday afternoon were males. Continue reading
My A level Biology students get to use the word “fart” in exams which is something I feel they should be excited about. What other subject would let you get away with that? The farts in question are emitted from the rear ends of cows and are said to contain significant amounts of methane, an important greenhouse gas. Technically, the gas is much more abundant in cow burps but the word “burp” doesn´t quite have the same appeal. This methane is a by-product of the complex process of cellulose digestion and is actually produced by microorganisms residing in the cow´s intestines rather than the cow itself.
In Southern Andalucia we are spared the worst extremes of seasonal change. The cold does not hit us as hard as further north in Europe, and even Spain. But the changes of the seasons are evident from the passage of birds in the skies overhead as they make their way from Africa into Europe in the spring and summer and returning once again in the autumn.
There is one bird which is due to make an appearance soon and which, to me at least, signals the change of season as clearly as a leaf fall in the autumn. This is the bee eater… Continue reading
It rained heavily last night and the rain continued to fall as I headed out in the late morning to take a look at the river. The weather seems to have been dry for some time now and I was curious to see how the fish would respond to the rainfall. Perhaps the disturbance of the droplets on the surface of the shallow river might animate them a little or, at least, make it a little easier to approach them unseen. I figured one thing was certain, the rain was unlikely to make them any wetter than they already were! Continue reading
fishydreams 