I swim in the River Tweed all year round, she has become a playful companion in my life and I often have wildlife encounters particularly when I’m alone in the water. When you are just a bobbing head you no longer present such a threat to the wildlife, particularly birds. I have crept up to within a metre of a dipper preening on a rock and held myself gently in the flow watching as it sorted out it’s feathers seemingly not noticing my presence at all.
It is encounters with kingfishers that have been the most magical. This has happened twice in a section of the Upper Tweed where there is a good population. The most memorable was with a pair who were clearly nesting on the river bank and changing shifts. The first flew down river past me to the nest, on handing over it’s mate set off on it’s usual course up river only to find a human head sized boulder in the middle of the river blocking its low flight path and had to make an emergency and very sudden detour around my head. Such a flash of iridescent blue and a shrill peep, peep flew past and then landed on a branch just upstream of me. I was treading water in the river’s flow to watch it preening, it seemed totally unaware of my presence. It rested long enough that I become so cold in the water that I had to turn, swim back downriver and get out, leaving it to continue its daily life on the river. What a wild swim treat.
Photo by Bernadetta Zyla.
