My friend Paul says the last week in May is the most inspiring of the year. The trees are are almost luminous green, the Devon and Cornish banks jostle with red, blue and yellow flowers and the air is filled with a background buzz of insects and birdsong.
This is the time when a kayak trip along a river is at its best. The freshwater margins are a magnet for birds and the water surface is a cloud of insects. I absolutely love to hear the enthusiastic chatter of Sedge and Reed Warblers, which only a few weeks ago were in a marsh somewhere the other side of the Sahara.
Any stretch of fresh water will do. Even the canals are fizzing with new life. You never know what is going to pop up next! Maybe a tiny fluffy Moorhen chick…or two!!
Henry and I paddled a fifteen-mile section of the beautiful River Wye on two occasions in May. The first was a Bank Holiday weekend so the river was fairly choc full, of humans…
Even so we were thrilled to find what we had come to see. A family of Goosanders which were just a day or two out of the egg. With some chicks riding on mother’s back!
Goosanders are a truly wild duck that live in fast-flowing clear-water rivers and feed on fish. Usually they are very shy. On my local river, the Torridge, they will fly away as soon as I come round the corner a quarter of a mile away. On the River wye, however, they seem to have made a wariness concession to kayakers and canoeists and tolerate a close approach.
It’s not just that they clear off because they have to tend to their newly-hatched brood. Even non-breeding adults remain asleep on gravelly banks as you glide silently past only a few yards away.
They seem to have learnt that grinning and chatting ‘punters’ floating downstream at a leisurely pace represent no threat. They clearly consider that the slowness and predictable movement of the craft as well as the overall quietness causes minimal disturbance…that’s why I choose a kayak for my wildlife-watching!
Unlike Goslings and Mallard chicks that feast on Mayflies, Goosanders eat fish. Right from the word go. So tiny little ducklings have to learn to dive pretty smartish.
Some are not so adept, or maybe more reluctant, than others, it would appear…
Interestingly, during our first visit to the Wye, a few male Goosanders were evident, usually loafing about on the shore. Two weeks later they had all disappeared. leaving mothers and broods alone on the river.
So where do the males go as soon as their involvement in the reproduction process is complete?
Do they bunk of to the local pub?
Not exactly…certainly nowhere local anyway.
They disappear off to a fjord in the north of Norway, where they moult and stay until the ice forces them back south next winter! Amazing. A migration miracle that has only recently been discovered.
It makes the fascination of Goosanders even more intriguing.
Although I feel that Goosanders are the most magical bird on the river, it’s lovely to see other fluffy families enjoying the warmth of the early summer sunshine. The youngsters can’t resist that after lunch torpor.
A relative newcomer to the Wye is the non-native Mandarin duck. Decades ago some birds escaped from collections and they have since spread over the whole of southern England.
They are an exceptionally dainty and attractive little duck, and we passed a whole load of newly hatched broods:
Their was one disappointment during our second Wye visit. We had expected a baby boom of cygnets, as we had passed over a dozen swans sitting on nests on our first trip. Unfortunately there were no cygnets at all and no sitting swans.
I think that heavy rain just after our first visit caused a sudden surge in river levels and washed out all the nests, which were only a foot or two above water level. A great pity.
The Canada Geese, which are quite happy to nest a bit further from the water’s edge, had no such problems:
Goosander males note: goslings are cared for by BOTH parents.
It’s a magical time of year indeed.
The Lone Kayaker 