Everything’s Turned Up to Eleven

There are certain weeks on the river when everything seems to happen all at once. If you know the reference, this is the point where we quote Spinal Tap and quietly observe that someone, somewhere, appears to have turned the whole catchment up to eleven!

Because right now, that’s exactly what it feels like. The trees that stood bare only a month or so ago are now in full leaf. The hedgerows have exploded into life. Swallows and martins are skimming low over the water. The evenings stretch on far longer. And somewhere, inevitably, someone is already complaining that it’s “too hot.”

Nature, it would seem, doesn’t do things by halves. If there’s a better time to get outside on Dartmoor and around the Teign catchment, then I’m struggling to think of it.

The North Teign Valley on the high moor…

The river’s busy

At this time of year, the river feels busier. Not in the human sense. Not with traffic or noise. Quite the opposite. It’s a quieter kind of busy. The sort that rewards standing still and breathing it all in.

Pause beside the river for long enough and you’ll see it. Insects drifting. Wagtails feeding. A dipper vanishing upstream like a wind-up toy. The kingfisher appearing as if someone has thrown a turquoise dart into view. And beneath it all, life continues largely unseen.

The riverbed is alive with invertebrates. Those tiny creatures that quietly hold the entire food chain together. Salmon parr hold station, well hidden in the current, already learning about the river they’ll one day leave and, if fortune smiles upon them, return to when they’re fully grown.

The good old brown trout rise confidently throughout the day and into the evening light, as if entirely unaware that grown adults have spent centuries inventing increasingly complicated ways to imitate the very insects drifting past them for free! In which case, you’d think they would be far easier to catch on a fly rod!

As pretty as it gets - a perfect Wild Brown Trout…

Look up

The fish, of course, are only part of the story. Lift your eyes from the water and the bankside and woods are busy too. Fresh willow growth glows almost green (whatever green is, as I am colour blind!). Foxgloves begin their annual takeover of banksides and woodland edges. Everywhere you look, things are growing, nesting, hatching, feeding or flowering.

If you’re lucky, and out at first light, you might catch sight of a deer darting through the trees, or hear the sharp mew of a buzzard circling high above and getting mobbed by crows. For a few short weeks each year, the catchment feels as though it’s operating at full capacity. To borrow from Mr Tufnel of Spinal Tap lore, everything appears to have been turned up to eleven. Why? Because, as Nigel rather sensibly pointed out, eleven is one more than ten!

Got to admire a nice bit of Large Woody Debris!

A fleeting moment

Perhaps that’s why these weeks matter to us all. Because they don’t last.

The length of sustained insect hatches will fade. Summer will settle properly over the valley. Water levels will slowly fall. Before we know it, someone will mention autumn and half of us will pretend not to hear them.

I think rivers teach you this more than anything else. The seasons move on whether we’re ready or not. The Teign has never truly stood still. It changes week by week, season by season, quietly reminding us that nature is not something fixed, but something in constant motion. And right now, it feels so alive and thriving.

Go outside

Which is why now feels like a good moment to make some time. Go for a walk. Sit beside the water and just watch. Leave the phone in your pocket for half an hour if you can manage it and stand quietly on a bridge and watch the current move beneath you.

Turn over a stone and see what lives underneath. See if you can spot a dipper, or a kingfisher. Look for a rising fish upstream. Because the whole catchment is busy getting on with being alive and I think it would be a terrible shame to miss it at its best.

After all, nature has turned everything up to eleven so the least we can do is go outside and listen.