RIver Kent: salmon leap at Stramongate Weir

Stramongate Weir

​Inky black and smooth, the water is held back by the weir, then plunges down in a cascade, into white water where a goosander is fishing,  flapping her wings on the edge of the churn of white water.  Sounds of falling water and of boulders rumbling in the bed of the river.  A swan drifts toward the weir,  hesitates, and drops white into turbulent white.

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​It is mesmerising,  the noise of falling water and its violence.   I scan the sweep of the weir, not knowing where or when the fish might leap.   Small and dark, they leap the falling water and I cannot guess their fate.  The smaller fish seem to fare better, an athletic flicker of slender muscular salmon.  Dark against white, one fish scarcely clears the churn to show against the cascade, and falls back.  Some rise and clear the cascade, but it’s impossible to see where they fall, whether they leap clear into the smooth dark water above the weir.
Much of the drama is unseen, underwater, where the merganser  dives down to take the fish gathering strength for the leap up the cascade.

The information board beside Starmongate Weir is helpful.   But what is shown doesn't resemble what we see here today.   I study the salmon leaping the weir, and I pore over the videos I took.  It’s a sunny morning and those watching beside me comment on how small the fish are.  And dark.  If these are ‘silver salmon’ the light doesn’t show them silver.   I begin by watching the fish pass but all the salmon I see try for the full height of the weir.  They don't appear to use the pass.
Somewhere further upstream the salmon will return to the redds, the gravels where the females will lay their eggs.  

​There’s a Flood Prevention Scheme a foot close by the spot where the Gooseholme pedestrian bridge stood until last year.  When there are floods, there’s always a cry for the river the be dredged.  That's not  the way to prevent flooding and, in some rivers, it will destroy the redds essential to the salmon breeding.
The Environment Agency has a Flood Prevention scheme underway.  With notices for Covid 19 prevention.   Wash hands 20,  Distance 2, Excuses 0. 
One controversial proposal includes the removal of mature trees that beautify the RIver Kent in Kendal and riverside.  Replacing a mature tree with half a dozen mature trees isn't an answer.  It takes half a century for a tree to grow to maturity where it is of real benefit to the environment, addressing the issue of air qualitiy and climate change.
See ITV  5th October 2020.  A Planet For Us All, with Prince William, David Attenborough and some inspirational very young conservationsists. 
The Environment Agency has a Flood Prevention scheme underway.  With notices for Covid 19 prevention.   Wash hands 20,  Distance 2, Excuses 0.   The barriers protecting the site are plastered with safety notices.   Reading them through, one realises how much work has gone into the creation of a safe working environment.