Ed 15 : Another dog day

 

 Every once in a while, you see something which makes you stop in wonder. In my experience this never happens when you have a camera with you; Mother Earth knows all about this, and then gives but a glimpse, leaving an image burned onto your cranial hard drive. Two such instances were separated by several years, but happened within twenty-five feet of each other.

 Weston Shore, lapped by Southampton Water, has a tiny rivulet flowing into it across the stony beach at West Wood. A shingle bank has caused it to flow parallel to the Water for about two hundred and fifty yards, deepening it in places and backing it up before it spills over and through the shingle in tiny threads out into the sea

. The source of this trickle once upon a time filled three ornamental ‘lakes’ before flowing through a culvert under the road to Netley, where it has scoured out a deeper channel and a pool before turning right, into its short course to mix with the seawater. Those ‘lakes’ have just about disappeared, being heavily silted and largely overgrown.

 The first occurrence was on a hot summer day; I was walking my terrier and noticed that ants were on the wing. As I neared the pool below that culvert there was quite a fall, and I was astonished to see fish unmistakeably rising to the hapless insects. The stained water hid the fish from my view, but the spread and frequency indicated several fish feasting. At the time I wondered if they might be young mullet?

The second happened some years later, another dog walk choosing that same route: crossing the culvert via the footpath, I glanced down at the water. Can’t help it, it’s habitual. Previously in that place I’d spotted a baby flounder, feeding the need for a look-see. This day I stopped in my tracks, barely three feet away amid some sedge stalks, a speckled rout was on station, holding in the slight current! It saw me watching and melted away, down into the murk. Looking back, I’d say it was between half- and three-quarters of a pound, being a little thin for its length.

 I can give no answers to the obvious questions, but time and idle contemplation have narrowed the field. Southampton Water is fed by the rivers Itchen and Test, so it seems most likely this was a sea-running trout. Could it have been coming back from salt into fresh water? Secondly, was it kin of those risers in the close-by pool back then? No habeas corpus means that I have to guess, but I would swear on my life it was a trutta; ME knows how to keep a secret, this mystery remains something of a wonder.

 

P.S. I returned to the scene after a couple of years just to take these pictures for this scribbling; the first bit below the culvert will be completely choked with sedge before long.