One good thing - 20th April 2020

As we complete four weeks of lockdown, I'm continuing to looks for "one good thing" about each day to counter the relentless 24 hour news cycle of death and economic bad news. And, despite everything, there's good things to be found.

One of my regular daily walks takes me along two stretches of the River Don - and it was the river which caught my attention this evening.  A winter of comparatively little snowfall and an exceptionally dry spell in which we've not had meaningful rain for well over a month have left the  Don at a very low level.

In fact I can rarely remember the river to be as low at this time of year, and certainly not to run just as crystal clear as it currently is.  The River Avon in the Cairngorms flows off granite and is famed for the clarity of its water .  The Don which also flows from granite hills but which have a peaty overlay is running it quite close for clarity at present.

Which is probably quite good news for this pair of Goosanders (Mergus merganser) but maybe not for the Brown Trout and Salmon which these sawbill ducks feed on.  The sky above the river was full of Swallows this evening, and there was the also the trilling call of a Common Sandpiper, another recently returned summer breeder.