Catch up TV

Series 1: 2. Summer

It’s summer, and the Erne is busy with summer visitors. Over the next few months, it is transformed into a giant watery playground welcoming hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world. But away from a busy tourist season, nature is also buzzing away enjoying the longer days and warmer weather.\n\nIn early summer, mayfly begin to hatch, and fisherman Michael Shortt is fly fishing for trout. It is also the nesting season for curlews, and Amy Burns from RSPB NI is travelling to island reserves to install cameras and measure and monitor the eggs. \n\nAt Castle Archdale, nature writer Dara McAnulty is pond dipping. He catches a dragonfly nymph and explains how it uses a jet propulsion system to get around the pond. Later in the programme he watches adult dragonflies and talks about how he has experienced bullying at school because of his autism and love of nature. \n\nOn the lough, the members of Row the Erne are rowing their hand-built traditional Irish currach to Devenish Island for an evening picnic and swim. \n\nIt's summer solstice, and painter Lorna Smyth joins a group from the Share Discovery Village who are paddling to Trannish Island, and in the island town of Enniskillen, Pat Lunny watches his grandson take part in his first open-water swimming race. \n\nWe meet French chef Pascal Brissaud, whose Watermill restaurant is on the bank of the Upper Lough. Summer is a busy time of year, but he relishes in the challenge of looking after people, and when things get too busy, looking at the lake calms him down.

Source: BBC 4