Little Boy Fishing - Shirley Abicair

Certainly remember the very first Television to feature in my life,

a little cabinet mounted 9 inch screen job, which must have been round about the mid 50's.

Likely one of the first performers as well was 

Shirley Abicare (Mistress of the Zither) a little more raunchy than

Pete Townsend - The Who smashing his guitar and amp to pieces,

or Ozzy biting the head off a Bat?  

 Little Boy Fishing - Shirley Abicair

(you'll be spared the Zither on this link)

While the weather hasn't been what you might call conducive with catching Moths, with hail storms (as shown on a previous Post), wind doggedly hugging the eastern quarter along with a number of other threatening looking

WEATHER FRONTS
(but no rain)

the morning of 03/05/2017 did throw up a decent and varied bunch of additions to

The Year List

 LIME HAWK-MOTH

 SMALL SERAPHIM

 CHOCOLATE-TIP

which has already been seen this year without a decent image

 GREEN CARPET

 COMMON PUG

SCARCE PROMINENT

Also with a little effort over the past week we have also come across a few 

Migrant Birds

starting at Longham Lake where, despite their 'common' connection, the

following trio have been far from that!

 COMMON SANDPIPER

 COMMON SWIFT

 and

 COMMON TERN

Additionally and a little more recently, after a number of failed attempts

we eventually made contact with the juvenile

 BONAPARTE'S GULL

that has been frequenting the lakes sporadically but daily.

Having seen the Blashford (different) bird earlier in the year this

niffy little Gull, from the Americas, was an addition to the County Year List.
The image is 'borrowed' from Wiki but it is hoped to field our own
when and if we manage a 'shot' in the near future!

Turning our attentions elsewhere and realising just how many times this site has

been visited, particularly since 2005, times the number of anglers encountered during

that period, it suddenly dawn that we have never seen a Fish strike let alone be landed.

Talk about the proverbial No 68 Bus, one turns up followed by 3 or 4 others in quick succession,

there was a young man angling just up ahead who seemed to be in a tussle with something 'largeish'.

His struggle had also attracted his 4 or 5 mates doing similarly,

with all of us watching in awe as he pulled out a

Monster from the Deep.

There followed some great banter between his mates and myself, and while

it wouldn't be me to call this young man puny he was struggling to lift

his catch as it was

Taken to the Scales.

It was at this point that one of his 'rod alarms' alerted him to a second 'bite'

which he attended to while his friend put the Fish back in the keep net. 

This a 10lb

 TENCH

was a Minnow by comparison to the first which was identified as a

COMMON CARP of 28½ POUNDS

but that was by no means all as again the familiar sound of the line-tensioner cut in again.

It was a lesson in patience and skill just to watch him land these Fish

 this again a

COMMON CARP

 and just a baby at 21lb.

Having stood there for no more than 45 minutes and watched a total of

59½ 'POUNDS of FISH

pulled from the lake it was difficult to know quite who was the most gob-smacked!

It is of note that all of the Leviathans were returned to the water none the worse for wear.

We did also pay just a single visit to 

Blashford Lakes

just across the county border into

Hampshire

where we had one of our luckiest finds of the year when opening the

viewing flap in the hide to find a

 BLACK TERN

right before us!

In all of this Parley Court Farm was not left out as a few migrants did filter through.

 HOUSE MARTIN

 Only one pair of

 WHINCHAT

have passed through thus far

 along with what occasionally

 prove to be

 most obliging

CUCKOO

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