After two beautiful days, Golden Week turned Biblical with intense downpours. All sorts of things happened. The mysterious tunnel that emerges near my house revealed itself as a very effective storm drain.
I remember a story as a child of a river of gold. I wish I could remember where it came from.
“If gold rusts, what then can iron do?”
Of course to those who have been infected, floods mean one thing – birds flushed from reed cover. Take I with my cromack to Nagahama dam close by. There is an area of reeds below the dam which sure enough is totally flooded and usually secretive birds are forced to dance on tables for all to leer at.
Miss Night Heron
Any way from the corner of my eye I spot a tiny bird scuttering around the stone breastwork way off in the distance. A whole bunch of neurons fire and I take some photos. I know something important is happening. What is this bird? I can hardly see it due to the distance between he/she and me but I instinctively tremble. I am like a hunting dog that see squirrels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y34NSUbEjY
Baillon’s Crake Like whoa!
This is a very rare bird. It only comes to Okinawa on migration and then spends 24 hours a day skulking in reeds playing computer games and interacting less than a neutrino. I however, have seen one! This means more to me than I think any of the usual metrics of success. I was there!
Nagahama Dam in spate
The Quiet Ripple Defines The Pond 
The Golden River? I remember it well, it dwells in Those Blue Remembered Hills. I think you mean John Ruskin’s “King of the Golden River”, a bit of Victorian whimsy with the trademark instructive cruelty for the edification of children of that era. I supsect it may have appealed particularly to you as it ended with the triumph of the youngest brother and his two elder siblings turned to stone. Here it is, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/701/701-h/701-h.htm , but sadly without the illustrations. Wonder where the colour of your river comes from?
That’s it! many thanks
or maybe it’s the river we’ll gather at, where bright angel feet have trod, that flows by the throne of god. Some days it feels like that here. Congratulations on the craik. I hope you stick around, even if you feel you can die now. And, rarities considered, that night heron is gorgeous.