What can be seen on a shopping trip to Tavistock

Today we went into Tavistock for a few bits and pieces. On the face of it, a pretty ordinary thing to do and without the Tavistock Factor it may very well have been. But Tavistock is not an ordinary place and this is what I saw whilst I strolled the 300 or 400 yards from the car park into the town centre.

From the car park and onto the river side walk into town. The Tavy was running fairly high and the torrents over the fish weirs were impressive. The bridge in the background was built around 1750 as part of the development of the turnpike system. The mediaeval bridge it replaced, and which lead directly into the old abbey, was demolished to make way for the newer one. Note the green mechanical arm just to the left of the arches: if you don't already know what it does, think about it. I'll be returning to this later.

Somebody taking advantage of the conditions, rather inexpertly in my humble opinion. Aren't you supposed to go with the flow rather than against it? I jest: he was just adjusting his position to get a better angle on the next set of rapids.

And this fellow was a big surprise. A juvenile cormorant about 25 miles from the sea. He/she spent ages giving us all a display of expert wing-drying.

By all accounts, it's been around for a few weeks and has its favourite rock where it can be seen most often.

Much, much more common than the cormorant, a mallard pondering whether to take a dip or not.

And now back to the green mechanical arm. Putting aside the facts that it certainly doesn't blend in well with its surroundings and that it's not that effective at its job, what is it? To the left of the arm, under a green oblong 'box', you can see some grills. These mark the take-off point for the Tavistock Canal, which leads to Morwellham roughly ten miles away. Constructed in the late 1700s, the canal took mineral ores mined on Dartmoor down to the Morwellham Quay on the River Tamar, thence out to the sea at Plymouth. I could say lots about this subject but I won't - back to the arm. Over the years, silting up the grills has been a  big problem and a number of ways of keeping them clear have been tried. The mechanical arm is the latest of these - it's an automatic grill cleaner. Here's what happens.

Acting on a predetermined schedule, the arm moves from its resting position and travels along a track so that the rake at the end of the arm comes up to the pipe leading to the grills........

The rake is drawn over the pipe entrance and then lifted out of the water...

..to move to the side and drop its contents downstream.

The arm then moves back to its starting position to await its next cycle. At the moment it seems to be in action at hourly intervals. I should add that it is described as 'salmon friendly' and 'resident bemusing'. (I added that last bit but it's true).

Is this the worst bird photograph ever? But it reminds me that I spent a very enjoyable 10 minutes watching these two blue tits 'being playful'. Spring is in the air.