High Summer, Low Water
The stream passing through the grounds of our holiday farmhouse in La Vendee was only a few feet across, and the sections joining the deeper pools were only inches deep. Coypu lived in holes in its banks, grazing the grass on our lawn early in the morning and plopping about in the stream after dusk. Kingfishers patrolled up and down the stream, sometimes passing within a few yards of us as we basked on the front lawn.
It was hot, and within days, the shallow reaches had dried up. Many eels came downstream to the haven of the pools, where the carp were already congregated. In the sweltering afternoon, the carp sunbathed in beams filtering through the overgrown hedge.