Swallows gorge on Mayo lake's insects - but few trout for anglers

COUNYRYFILE

Thinking of a trout dinner (who can think of anything finer for a warm summer day than cold poached trout with new potatoes and a light mustard sauce!), I took a boat on to Carra and spent a happy evening afloat.

It's as well I took a sandwich, for there wasn't a fish to be seen apart from the legions of perch that seem to have displaced the noble Carra brown trout.

There was more, though. An hour before sunset swallows started to arrive.

At first they turned up in small family groups of 10 or a dozen, causing me to give them no more than an acknowledging glance.

Within minutes these disparate groups began to amalgamate and there were hundreds of birds before me, swooping low over a light ripple to snatch hatching water flies from the surface.

I left off my fishing to watch. As I sat still so the swallows drew closer and closer still, until they were passing within arm's reach and flying just a yard above my head.

Perhaps there were other groups congregating in other parts of the bay, for suddenly, with no warning, the air was thick with these birds.

They were there by the thousand, as a vast, swirling cloud, each of them feeding hard on those emerging insects.

With such a prodigious hatch of flies there should have been trout there as well. The EU-funded Carra LIFE project is badly needed.

There is much work to do if this most lovely lake is to be restored to anything like it was before.

There are positive signs though. While the water in the bay I had gone to fish was rather thick and green in appearance, which in itself indicates an over-abundance of nutrients, the insects hatching were those that thrive in relatively clean and well oxygenated water conditions.

Among the caddis flies and small pond olives were even one or two of those large mayflies that once had anglers swarming to fish this lovely lake. Now, with not a trout to be found, they were food only for the birds.

But what birds! What grace they have, what foresight and agility, so as to avoid aerial collisions in such crowded conditions.

Angling was forgotten as they fed hard before my eyes. And how dense that hatch of insects must have been, so as to keep so many hungry swallows busy through the last hour of daylight and far into dusk.

Then, at some signal not discerned by myself, they flew to roost in the reeds where they set up a constant chatter.

Soon the sky was devoid of swallows. A few sand martins remained on the wing, mopping up the remnant of that huge insect hatch.

A tribe of ducks, gadwall, I think, emerged from the reeds to take what insects remained on the water.

If I would find my trout I would have to try the next bay. As soon as the oars went back into the water the swallows all took off together and the sky was filled once more and the air about me was thick with them.

I imagine this rather early for such numbers of swallows. A month from now I would expect it.

So are they gathering in readiness for an early departure, or has this year been an exceptionally good breeding season?

Most swallow pairs will still have young ones in the nest, and if we get a protracted spell of warm weather they will try and produce another brood.

I think of friends who would be enthralled by that same spectacle. What riches we have, and could yet have when Mayo county Council drive this important LIFE project to the next level. We cannot wait.