The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Gazing in wonder at nature in the raw as river roars and geese glide in to land
The River North Esk is a spate river, meaning it is rain fed and its level can rise rapidly following heavy rain and fall just as quickly – and it lived up to its reputation last weekend. You’ll remember that it rained relentlessly for more than 24 hours, and as the water poured off the hills into the little burns and watercourses that feed into the main river its level rose spectacularly.
On Sunday I took Inka along the river walk on the Blue Door Walk to The Loups, the gorge where the rocky channel narrows and tumbles over a series of waterfalls which home-migrating salmon must loup or navigate on their journey upstream to the river’s headwaters to spawn.
Many a time I’ve seen the water positively docile but on Sunday it was fairly brawling through the rocky gorge, a surge of breaking waves the colour of Newcastle Brown Ale. And so high it covered the rocks on which the pier of the old dismantled footbridge over the river stands – the level had risen maybe 30ft. I stood watching for a while, cocooned in the white noise of the wild waters rampaging past in a state of high agitation.
How many walkers realise there’s a salmon pass – a stepped passage which breaks the force of the water in spate conditions – carved out of the rock by hand in the 1930s? It lets migrating fish clear The Loups in spate conditions.
In springtime if you’re at The Loups in normal conditions you may see the spring run of salmon negotiating the waterfalls, flinging themselves through the broken rapids to reach calmer water and continue their eternal journey upriver.
It all brought to mind a song my father sang from his student days – “The burn was big wi’ spate, / An’ there cam’ tum’lin’ doon / Tapsalteerie the half o’ a gate, / Wi’ an auld fish-hake an’ a great muckle skate, / An’ a lum hat wantin’ the croon!”
Father had one singing note and two songs, the other of which was “There was a wee cooper wha lived in Fife”, which made for strangely melodic car journeys when we went on holiday!
Out last thing with Inka I came across a juvenile hedgehog rolled up in its protective ball – the first time I’ve found one so young – about half the size of an adult and displaying the characteristic adult brown spines. I hope it had developed enough to survive the extreme wet conditions it encountered so early in its life.
Autumn feast
Tuesday dawned bright sunshine and it seemed an ideal opportunity to take Inka to St Cyrus for a gallop on the beach. As I drove down the narrow road past historic
Kirkside House what seemed at first sight to be a cloud of mosquitoes were swarming over green foliage. It turned out to be dozens of honey bees and wasps, and several species of bumble bees I didn’t recognise, gorging on pollen on the late flowers of an evergreen shrub. It will likely be one of the last chances the bees have of collecting pollen to store in the hive to sustain their colony over winter.
The tide had just turned and was flooding in over the long expanse of damp sand. It was blissfully warm and I wondered idly if it might herald the start of an Indian summer. There was hardly any breeze but spindrift was flying off the crests of the waves breaking on the shore. Armadas of fleecy cumulus clouds sailed majestically across the sky. By the time we came off the beach, banks of black rain clouds were building up, but we’d had the best of the morning.
Coming in to land
Geese are very vocal as they prepare to land, as if warning each other to keep their distance or there will be a collision. I watched a pack of pink foot geese preparing to land in a nearby stubble field on Nether Warburton Farm. They are sharp-eyed, wary birds and they made several circuits of their chosen feeding spot, reconnoitring the ground for danger.
Satisfied it was safe to land they started to spiral down, twisting and banking and whiffling the air from beneath their wings to lose height quickly. A final wheel into the wind to steady their descent, down went their paddles and they landed, folding their grey wings and settling with a waggle of tail feathers – masters of their aeronautical skills.
Word power
If readers haven’t already discovered the game of Bananagrams, now is the time. It seems likely we are facing more months of coronavirus constraints, and the long winter evenings will need spicing up.
The game is played with word tiles like Scrabble but is more dynamic and fast moving, stretching your vocabulary and spelling skills. With a glass of wine in the hand to help things along it’s a highly competitive game – especially if you’re the Doyenne.
I wondered idly if it might herald the start of an Indian summer