Monday 6th July

Well my first fishing trip for three years didn't work out too brilliantly.  I fished swim 9 at Dissington Pond on the short pole, so pretty much what I used to do at Brooms near Annan.  It was a bit weird as I couldn't remember how to handle the tackle and was a bit short of bait, not wanting to make unneccessary shopping trips.

After a some while I caught a small perch on worm and could have had more but decided to stick out for better fish on heavier tackle.  It was probably a mistake as all I got was a few nips and nibbles and swirls from an obviously large carp foraging in the swim after I added some old halibut pellets to the feed.

I think I need to get out of the old methods and try different ideas, ideally with less tackle to cart around.

In spite of some iffy weather I did a nature walk with a friend at Big Waters, where we quickly saw a number of ringlets and a couple of fine looking and large red admirals, as well as meadow brown and speckled wood.

Ringlet

Red Admiral

A pleasant surprise was to see a trio of baby swallows as they waited to be fed by the parent bird.

Baby Swallows

Almost better than that I managed to actually identify a flower - agrimony.

Agrimony

Today I made my first attempt to track down the white-letter hairstreaks at Bywell, spurred on by an optimistic weather forecast.  But when I got to the bridge by bike, it was the usual murk tht we are calling summer this year.  I hung around for a while during a brief bright spell. Then it started to drizzle and I decided to push off, cursing the weather forecast.  When I think of the days this year when I've stayed in because rain was forecast that never arrived...

I did however discover that there are also a few wych elm in the Wylam area, one of which was directly opposite a local hostelry. It was open.