What a Glorious Day… admittedly a little bit of wind chop as the tide flooded up the river but a quick manouver by Leanne into the back and we were soon flying our way up towards Frenchmans Creek…
We’d got out into Helford creek basically as soon as water started to show, after a brief wait for water to reach us which gave Leanne time to make us a sandwich for lunch and me time to stalk a black headed gull who was sifting the mud with the in coming tide..
Sifting the mud for food as the tide comes into Helford Creek
After a nice sandwich and cuppa, the water finally reached us with enough depth to float the boat so we pushed her into the water and slowly eased our way past the weed and out into the river…
We were still on the first pushes of the incoming tide as we turned into Frenchman’s Creek, the good thing about that is there weren’t many out in the creeks yet so there may be more chance of seeing the, Fast disappearing from Cornwall, Kingfisher. In fact there was just a young couple of a twin Kayak own the Creek as we approached slowly.
Enjoying the afternoon sun in Frenchman's creek
We spent around 1/2hr in the creek but saw very little, I’m hoping at least one pair of Kingfishers did survive the cold winter snaps and predators (Having seen at least 3 stoats searching the river back last time we were here) that they may have a chance to re-populate the river by the end of the year..
Kingfishers are very short-lived. Many young will not have learned to fish by the time they are driven out of their parents territory and realistically only about half of the fledglings would survive more than a week or two.
Although very few survive to breed the following year, it’s usually enough to maintain the population. Likewise, only a quarter of adult birds survive from one breeding season to the next. Very few birds live longer than one breeding season. The oldest bird on record was only 7.5 years.
Most kingfishers die of cold or lack of food a severe winter can kill a very high percentage of the birds. Despite high breeding productivity, populations can take many years to recover from a bad winter, and of course thats what we have recently experienced with the warm one minute and cold the next climate changes over the winter.
We did see one lone female at the mouth of Frenchman’s on the fallen tree on our last trip but alas not to be seen this time, unfortunately the males will stay territorial and await the females to join them so she may have gone in search of a male.
Well enough of my favourite river bird, there was still plenty of activity out on the river and certainly the Black headed gulls were there in great numbers today..
The other species we saw in larger numbers than last year were the Shelduck, several pairs with youngsters were about in the creeks and the main river but unfortunately a little skittish when I took out the camera.. still we did manage a couple of shots of the youngsters…
Running for cover from the camera
A little uncertain young shelduck follows his siblings
Well certainly one thing that has returned to the river in significant numbers is boats and people… and there seemed to be more about than ever, and some very nice boats amongst them I have to say… as we’ll see later when we return down river to view the boats..
Meantime we decided to break out onto the main river again and head up towards Bishops Quay and Mawgan Creek.
It was so much less windy on the far side of the river so we tucked into the edge in the shelter of the ancient Oaks and sauntered up the river..
Lots of little boats were out too with people enjoying such a beautiful day on the river… here’s some friends we passed having a good old Sunday afternoon natter whilst being ferried down river in their little atlantic fisher…
Having a good old fashioned Chinwag 
as my Grandfather used to say
We Turned into Magan Creek and stopped to photograph some Blackheads and redshanks on the bank opposite Bishop’s quay.. unfortunately the boat wouldn’t stay still long enough to get a good shot and it was then we noticed the vast amount of trailing weed that was happily winding itself round the prop and engine so I had to shout off the engine and drift back across into the channel while we cleared it off the prop and water intake..
Egret amongst the Gulls and redshanks
Back in the Channel we stopped off at the quay for a few moments to say Hello to Ben and Kate who had the Grandchildren with them and obviously busy with the summer visitors who I think had just launched in their little sailing Dinghy and were also enjoying the river…
Always good to see Kate’s smiling Face, but they seemed very busy so we didn’t hang around and left them to the Grandchildren while we went over to what used to be the swinging kettle before someone stole it (see previous post)
and there we had a nice cup of tea on the side of the river and watched others out enjoying themselves, including Ben and Kate’s Guests from the holiday home (we think)…
Getting the hang of it and having fun
Happy Holidays on the river
We were joined by a gentleman who was walking the local farmers dogs while they were away and had a really nice chat.. thats the one great thing about River life, we meet some fantastic really friendly people.
He showed us the sea spinach which we’d no idea existed and then took his leave and wandered back into the woods on to re-appear later in Helford village as we were putting the boat back on the roof of the van..
We set off again to head up to Gweek, but there was a bit of a nippy headwind so we decided against it and instead sailed slowly back down the river where the wind dropped and it was once again Beautiful in the sunshine..
Lots were out with their dogs today too, we passed a good few boats with dogs aboard in one form or another which does show how mans best friend can enjoy the river too
Full speed ahead Capn' and how about Mullet for tea?
A Life on the Ocean wave
We took some time out on the beach outside Port Navas and had a cuppa before continuing our search for a small sailing boat so that we could extend our trips by staying up the river for a few days at a time
These trips are all too short as we are so governed by getting the boat in and out of the water that we’re nearly always restricted to a 2 hours either side of the tide and it nearly always means we have to get off the river just when you don’t want to … especially now that we’ve been told we can’t launch our dinghy from the sailing club without being a member… but the site doesn’t earn us £400 a year yet to warrant paying that for membership just to launch the dinghy maybe once a week.. so the option is to buy a boat we can sail into the river on and stay on and sail home.. Something up to a 21-22 ft with a bilge keel would be perfect for us if anyone knows of anything or would like to help us with some patronage
Well that just about wrapped up our trip as we’d once again started to run out of water in the creek and we needed to get the boat out and loaded onto the van..
We’re planning a few more trips very soon so we hope to see you then…
Hope you enjoy the images.. many more of which are in our Galleries HERE!
bye for now
