At Last!”

we made it onto the river this afternoon for a few hours and it was great to be back out on the water surveying the wildlife and just generally drinking in the beauty of the river..

We decided to launch from Gweek as it was only a 6mtr Tide so we knew we wouldn’t have a lot of water to play with.. we arrived at Gweek just before 12 noon, and got the boat ready and had some lunch while we waited for some water in the Creek..

A couple of swans had made their way up river and were being fed by one of the local residents of the river from his boat..

The river was running quite rapidly through the road bridge but the creek was still empty and we were now chasing the time if we were going to be able to spend a little time with Kate and Ben at the Quay and still do all we wanted to do.. But it was just good to be going out at all…

Finally there was enough water to get the boat in by the bridge and manouver it through the shallows past the moored boats until we were deep enough to drop the engine and burble out of the creek and into the main Helford River

The river was so quiet and peaceful as we moved down out of  Gweek Quay and down past the Seal Sanctuary… AQ couple of fishermen were fishing from the banks opposite the sanctuary so we negotiated their lines and headed towards the first mudbank where Shelduck and Curlew were sifting the mud and drilling for food..Shelduck on the bank by the Seal Sanctuary

In no time at all we rounded the corner on the far side and were heading to Bishop’s quay, there were lots of waders around, Redshank Curlew Whimbrel Egret and Heron and lots of small waders flying about as we came close to them most probably dunlin and sandpiper or sanderlings but it was difficult to see as we had left the binoculars in the van in my rush to get on the water..

The light had fallen quite dramatically as the skies filled with what looked like snow clouds and blocked out the sun so Photography was becoming more and more difficult.. You need High ISO and fast speeds to overcome the movement and vibration of the boat and engine and in this light almost everything I shot had motion blur of one kind or another, so my apologies for the few photographs this trip but it was just a short visit and as I say we lost the light quickly.

We turned into the Quay and saw the welcome waves from the house and off the quay so we headed in to see Kate and Ben and drop off one of our desk calendars for Kate.. Ben was busy moving Nets around and general work on the Quay and Kate invited us to join her upstairs for a cup of tea and some of her wonderful Lemon Drizzle cake oh and spice cake mmm
We had a lovely chat and met our New friend Gracie May River, who was adorable and Kept Leanne busy with a game of snap or happy families before showing us around the holiday house which is a dream if you want a really lovely place to stay for a holiday.. I couldn’t think of anywhere better..
watered fed and warm we decided we should get back out onto the river as we’d arranged to meet up with a friend Aidan who was probably just heading down river on his Kayak.. Kate Packed us some cake to take for us and him and we thanked her once again and said goodbye to her and Gracie May promising we would return soon…

We sailed out of the creek and turned down river to see if we could find Aidan and eventually moored on the bank to wait for him to catch us up.. eventually he appeared round the corner and rowed in to meet up with us..

We had more tea from Leanne’s flask and a piece of Kate’s Spice cake.. (Aidan ate all the Lemon Drizzle) and said how wonderfully moist and tasty it was…
I’d put the camera on the tripod to try and get a few shots in the fading light and we realised the tide had actually dropped out quite a bit as one leg of the tripod was originally in the edge of the water and was noaw a foot clear of it so we figured as it was a smaller tide we’d best think of making our way back up river to gweek..

I captured a couple of shots down river to show how quiet it was, blissfully quiet in fact

as we burbled up the river once again the birds were flying over us or away from us and the light so low now it was almost impossible to get a flight shot but I tried and here’s the results :

By the time we got to Gweek there was very little water in the creek so we had to go up past the boatyard where I dropped Leanne off and rowed up the river to the bridge.. Aidan pulled me into the deeper water when I ran shallow and we eventually got the boat out of the water by the Bridge..

What an absolutely superb afternoon it had been.. a little dissappointing Photography wise but nontheless the spirit was filled once more..

Massive massive thank you’s to Ben Kate and Gracie May River for making us so welcome again on the Quay and sharing their hospitality.

By the time we arrived home we’d a lovely Mail from kate and she’d added some more of her images which I’ll leave you with for today.. including the masses of Blue tits and finches which were constantly on her feeders…

Bishop’s Quay Bird Feeders -images by Kate Kirby

thank you for taking time to read our adventures on the river..

Until Next time

Mel^

Hi again Everyone, my apologies for the delay in getting back to the river.  The winter had been a particularly hard time for me this year I’m afraid, not only due to the big Freeze, for which I would dearly have loved to have travelled the river and photographed the stunning scenery, but also due to my Rheumatoid Arthritis which had started to flare again in late november.

The long and short of it was that the Chemotherapy they are now using to treat My RA should have lasted up to 6 months from August which would have meant I would be only just starting to feel it wearing off about now, but I had to be booked back into Treliske on the 21st December for more treatment..
The Chemo infusions take around 6 hours and my second one had to be postponed because of the ice and snow until the 8th january so here I am almost 2 weeks after and hoping that the sickness that comes with it will have worn off by the weekend and allow me to make my first trip of 2010 up the Helford River.

I’m indeed looking forward to catching up with a few friends we’ve met on our visits, and especially Kate and Ben who have so kindly sent me some images of the River and the Quay in snow, which has also prompted me to write on the blog just so I can share those with you as I’m sure Kate won’t mind me publishing them.

I’ll start with the Snow Images from Bishops Quay which I believe are taken on Kate’s   Fujifilm Finepix  S5700..

4 fabulous images showing a little of the beauty the snow brought along with the Chaos for many.. and speaking of Chaos Kate tells me they have now closed the lane up to Mawgan past Rock Cottage for the next 8 weeks which will have no doubt isolated them more than a little so if you’re on the river and pass Bishops Quay shout a Hello to help them avoid cabin fever..

We will definitely be going up there in the next week or so to say hello and to thank Kate personally for these lovely Photographs.. I’m presuming this is Kate’s Grandson showing us the lane is closed..

but here’s a much prettier view of the lane in snow..

Kate tells me she’s been feeding the wild birds around the clock as Have many of us, thankfully their feeding ground is getting better again now but with the large influx of birds due to the freezing conditions elsewhere there really is still a food shortage for so many species..

I tried hard to save the life of one poor Lapwing who’d had one foot frozen off and was in a real bad way when I found him.. we thought it would be his only chance to keep him warm and feed him up but sadly he died the next day having lost so much bodyweight due to the frozen ground.. They feed on worms and insects and he obviously couldn’t find anything with the frozen land probably for a few days..
They need so much body fat which comes from their food and proteins to help them fly and as with this chap if they don’t have that they become grounded and endangered and many have died in the freeze.

So please keep feeding the birds always, but especially in winter.

Back to the River, or Riverside.. Here’s a couple of Kates Fine feathered friends who were kept happy and healthy on Spaghetti and hot Pasta during the freeze

and from one Happy Brood to what must have been another when they arrived to this spread.. Now those who have tasted Kate’s Cakes well know how delicious and moreish they are so I can ascertain this spread would have been absolutely Mouthwatering..

Well I have to sincerely Thank Kate and Ben for the Photographs that have given me my first opportunity to blog about the River this year, and I’m looking forward to many many trips there this year and to meeting again Old Friends and many New ones..

New year Blessings to you all, be sure to give our little Dinghy a wave if you see us on the river this year and if we manage to capture some good images we’ll most definately share them here with you all..

All the Very Very Best for 2010 from Leanne and Myself

Mel^