Wide Wednesday: RiverTyne, Hexham bridge

Bobsblips's subject for today's Widwed challenge is "sea or water" (many thanks as always, Bob).

Following blipper WalkingMarj's blip last Friday, when she mentioned that the salmon were leaping the weir at Hexham at the moment we decided to drive out there to witness this phenomenon as it was a lovely sunny morning - and we'd never seen it before. Naturally I hoped to manage to capture this on camera, but I knew that even if I didn't then I'd still get a suitable blip.

You can no doubt tell from the fact that I've not blipped a leaping salmon that I failed miserably in my attempt to photograph that particular event: although we did see about half a dozen leaps they never happened where I was pointing the camera, and as you can see the weir is quite wide.

I did get a suitable Widwed shot though, and it shows the opposite side of the bridge (the east, downstream side) to the one which Marj blipped. The history of this bridge is interesting: it was the fourth attempt to build a lasting bridge there in the 18th Century, being completed in 1793 - the previous three, built between 1767 and 1781, were destroyed by floods. It seems to have lasted well since then (no doubt longer than modern concrete bridges will last!).

I've now read that the best time to see salmon leaping is in the early morning or in the evening, preferably after rain. Depending on the weather I may have another go sometime in the next few days.

(The frustrations of trying to photograph children or animals!)