Tales from the river bank: Spring heralds a new awakening on the River Kennet at Barton Court Estate

River Keeper Nick Richards chronicles the changing of the seasons, reflects on a particularly peculiar winter and sings the praises of the water rail.

Well, what a funny one last winter has been. I’ve been cold, but not often and not for long. I’ve been wet, but not often and not for long and things are growing and flowering with no respect for the calendar. The snowdrops have shown the decency and good manners to flower on schedule, but some daffodils were opening in what was the sunniest January on record.

I like to think that I have learned a few lessons in a couple of decades working on the chalk streams and I am beginning to understand that one of the most valuable might be that it is utterly unhelpful to worry about anomalous weather patterns.

This winter has also been relatively dry.

The aquifer is lagging behind its normal winter recharge and we can expect lower flows in the coming fishing season unless we get a decent drop of rain.

This is not catastrophic but would have had me fretting and chewing my fingernails 20 years ago. Some species might find the lower water levels difficult, but others will thrive as a result.

Like the fish, birds, mammals and invertebrates that I work with and for, I will adapt my own actions to suit what the spring throws at me.

To be on the safe side, I continue my daily rain dances.

I have enjoyed the presence of my winter and year-round avian companions on the river bank throughout the winter and, as always, the stonechats feature heavily in my daily pleasures.

I often feel that they are supervising my activities from the post top vantage points. During the mild weather there have been significant emergences of midges and their dancing clouds have provided my supervisors with a welcome boost of protein rich sustenance.

Clear bright winter days and the low angle of the sunlight illuminated the swarming insects and they can appear as a glittering, whirling mass. From a low vantage point, working in the water, it is breathtakingly dramatic to see the stonechats’ darting assaults on this teeming, shimmering horde.

Water rails have been a bit of a thing for me for over 30 years. They are the most understatedly beautiful birds I know and are incredibly secretive.

That furtive, slinking movement that you once saw in the edge of a reedbed and ignored, possibly muttering something about moorhens might well have been one of the finest bird sightings of your life. If there is one wetland bird that I yearn to see more of, it is always this one.

I have given up on bitterns. I have a strong feeling that bitterns are a conspiracy invented by everybody else who enjoys a bird sighting. All they do is write it in the sightings record of any hide that I am about to visit and then wander off chuckling to themselves.

I realise that I do believe in them because I have a profound longing to hear one booming on Barton Court Estate.

The water rail is definitely real and I have been head over heels with this species since I saw my first one in a ditch while taking a break from fielding duties on my home cricket pitch.

I have had some wonderful views of them in the intervening three decades and have been fortunate enough to watch courtship, adults with very young chicks and fledglings. This little purplish bird with the legs and feet of a moorhen and the bill of a chough is commoner than you might imagine and I urge you all to go and sit in a wetland hide and watch out for it.

They generally appear in the corner of your eye while you are watching some dramatic interaction between a couple of mute swans.

The trout have finished spawning and their redds (egg laying excavations) are not as widespread as I would have hoped. The numbers of redds aren’t diminished, but the low flows have meant that the sites that I have tried to improve may be of marginal value this year and hence less attractive.

I will monitor the value of these sites as the flows increase and decrease and decide about doing more work in these areas accordingly. For now, I feel that the work is good and the gravels will be more attractive to spawning trout in a higher flow winter.

Historically popular sites have also gone unused this year, a fact which adds to my confidence.

Find some fast shallow water with a clean bright gravel bed and keep your eyes open and you might see grayling spawning – although we are coming to the end of the season for this now. It is a wonderful sight, but please remember that this is the most important moment of their year and try not to spook them. It is poor form and unforgivably poor technique to spook them as you approach, but it is much worse to watch and enjoy the spectacle and then stand up and spook them when you have had enough. Stalk in carefully and leave with even greater caution.

Nature keeps on giving to the careful observer, but please remember your responsibilities.

Happy spring everyone.