Fly Fishing By H Martin

To Panshanger Park on a mission to shoot the five-hundred-year-old Great Oak, the largest maiden or clear-stemmed oak in the country, as it comes into leaf. Mission impossible, it's still in tight bud, unlike many oaks which are showing their gorgeous, vibrant, lime-green foliage.

The reed beds are singing with warblers but I couldn't get a peep, let alone a shot. Got a glance at a whitethroat but that was all. Kes was surprised to encounter me lurking when I was hunting them and I got a reasonable shot of him.

On the way to the oak I met a fly fisherman and asked him which flies he had been using. He said buzzers, which mimic the Chironomidae non-biting midges which are proliferating at the moment. This is called match the hatch.

On the way back down the hill from where the oak stands I noticed a large flock of house martins and swallows sweeping low over Humphry Repton's Broadwater, which he created by damming the River Mimram. They were after those non-biting midges no doubt. I'm quite pleased with the above shot, it's not easy to track fast and elegant members of the Hirundinidae in flight. :)