Dawn & Dusk, Spawn they must...

Good afternoon all, apologies for the break in blogs, I was dealing with a health issue, successfully by the way, and yesterday when finally out and about again, I was 'caught with my pants down' as the saying goes and I missed a once a year spectacle of Herring spawning in Seaford bay with no camera and a dead battery in my phone!

At dawn today all there was left to see were seagulls so full that they could hardly take off from where at dusk yesterday they were frantically flying to' and fro' then plummeting on roe as the herrings released it just under the surface of the flat calm sea. I'm reminded here of my grandfather's words to me as a 10yr old; " Don't just look at things boy, see them for what they are."

So many folk yesterday, if they noticed them at all, would have just seen some birds flapping about but underneath the water, unseen by us, something fantastic was happening. Local small scale commercial fishermen are at present catching Herring and Sprats along the Sussex coast but years ago in my hometown of Brighton it was a huge part of the economy. On calm days like this the boats netted the fish and brought them ashore between the piers but if the weather turned while they were still at sea the boats had to land their catches at Newhaven and the 'Barrow Boys' would run as fast as they could up the road and over the cliffs, pushing their heavy wooden barrows to get the fish back to market in Brighton. First back got the highest price and were guaranteed to sell them all.

I may be wrong but I wouldn't be at all surprized if the Sprats that are being caught just now along with the Herrings are tagging along to do as the Gulls were and no doubt there were also Whiting and flatfish making the most of it. As I left last night an almost complete full moon came up over the hill. The winter solstice is upon us and these events all throughout the year are for some mysterious reason, triggers world wide for spawning events...

...which brings me to the other half of my weekend and another 'one that got away'.

I am at present on the Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust Sea trout spawning watch and what you see in the photo above ( far right of the gravel bed) is a 'Redd' Note the oval area where there are more pale coloured stones than dark ones. in an oval shape. That is dirty stones turned over to expose the cleaner undersides by a hen, female, Sea trout when making the Redd, like a bird's nest, with her tail and the current, in which to lay here eggs. Let me show you a better photo;

This was another one nearby. Deeper and easier for you to see.

Once complete the Cock fish, the male, or perhaps more than one, will release milt, sperm, into the water up stream that hopefully will drift onto and fertilise the female's eggs.

These are shallow streams that run into the main rivers. Hopefully they are out of town and higher upstream than any pollution threat from factories, farms, sewerage outlets etc. but the key ingredient is gravel of such a shape and size that it leaves small gaps between each piece where the eggs can drop down and out of reach of predators and still be in running water if the level drops, until the young can hatch and move downstream and eventually to the sea. Sea trout are in fact genetically identical to Brown trout. They can and do interbreed but for various reasons some end up in brackish water and stay there and some go to sea and only return to spawn. Thankfully this isn't just a one day event, I have a few more days, maybe a week or two to watch, wait and watch some more and hopefully get some shots to show you these magnificent creatures. Watch this space, and remember those words;

"Don't just look at things, 'see' them"