64.

I watch Emile till his furrows with a slow cultivator that makes a great deal of noise. He leans forward to the extent of his stretched arms as it works forward then gathers up his feet and joins the machine again. This continues for 10 meters each furrow until the engine putters to a stop Then Marie joins up behind him with a rectangular, woven basket. She is wearing a red and brown thick pullover in this 25 degrees. Feet on either side of the trench Emile chops at the soil and takes one straddled pace forward. Marie drops a seed potato in and he uses his heavy hoe to chop the soil again, backwards towards her rubber boots and over the planted potato When they have ended the row they bend round and go to the next, up and down. They do not know that I am watching. I am quite hidden. So much for their privacy.

Bee eaters again and a hoopoe. Fewer nightingales this year I think, and definitely fewer cuckoos or just that they are not in their best voices. But a walk at dusk is still a thrill just to listen along the copses.

May1st. The fisherman are all out, have been since last night. The Aspens drip onto the footpath and onto the fishing shelters dotted along the lake shores. Even the bird hide is requisitioned: generators, bunks, sleeping bags and fishing gear. Today is a holiday and not one minute is missed of this special but damp day. They are allowed 6 catches each and they go mainly for the big catfish that fill the depths and spawn in the shallows . Shelters have been raised for the barbecued lunches and dogs are tied up beside just about every pitch. That`s the form around here.

Now the rain cloud hangs pierced on the slopes above the water, not rolling downwards yet, a fine curtain of drizzle is just above me and the sun, thinly glazed, wavers light over the yellow clay shore. If you look again it could be an estuary of S Devon and salt water instead of fresh reservoir. The steeple bell, long drowned, is sometimes heard, they say.That`s a universal legend. It was inundated in the 20s. The frogs’ chorus instead, call and answer, call and answer rings to and fro and bubbles skitter across the green pool edges; not so much croaks as weedy roars and cackles.

Again the Golden Oriole, that lovely, hidden call; I can’t see him but a shadow flits behind the pinnacle of a poplar and the 'llee -oo, llee-li-oo' slips into the space. I trudge through mud but the rain holds off. A baleful, drawn out, wolf howl from a huntsman’s dog, tied up no doubt, ripples down from somewhere: a barn, a shed, a pen, a hamlet above the lake woods. . Careful not to tread on the delicate cephelanthera, the white helleborine, the lady orchid or the dour man orchid I emerge into a rain storm and the path takes me to the van..