Leap Of Faith

Autumn is time for an incredible – and challenging – journey, and we can all get a front-row seat this month, as Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Tom Marshall discovers

FAR away from hazy summer days beside a sun-drenched lake, my legs still dangle over a rock, this time covered in plenty of layers of socks for a bracing autumn afternoon.

There’s dampness in the air and occasional gloopy drops of water finally let go from the tips of leaves above me, remnants of the rain a few hours earlier. Far from being an unwelcome element of the forecast, the previous downpour is just what was needed to make my trip all the more worthwhile, creating as it has, a river in spate and tumbling with relentless foaming and bubbling waterfalls. And these are just the conditions needed for a chance to encounter what I’ve travelled to see.

I’m in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, in a landscape of a thousand postcards; surrounded by woodland turning firey-red and orange, a humpback bridge crumbling with old-age grace and dignity, and in the distance a mill harking at a past harnessing the power of the river I’m sitting beside.

The wait can be short – perhaps a few minutes after my arrival, or somewhat longer as your attention wavers and eyes gaze instead towards a hungry jay or woodpecker. Then – and always without warning – a silvery flash from the torrent before me as an Atlantic salmon fires itself torpedo-like out of the bubbling river and a split second later vanishes behind the curtain of falling water. My hunch was right, the salmon run has begun.