Lush

Gosh the countryside looks lush after all this warm rain!  This is the Upper Reach of the River Thames, well above Oxford. We visited a site, Chimney Meadows, owned by our local Wildlife Trust, BBOWT. They bought this stretch of the Thames nearly 20 years ago so that they could remove the obstacles to fish swimming up-river to their spawning grounds.  The river had two weirs in this stretch which were too high for the fish to jump when the water level is low.  So they dug a meandering by-pass channel which follows an old arm of the river, where the river flows unimpeded all year round.  As well as enabling thousands of fish to spawn up-river, it is a seasonal flood meadow, full of birds, including some curlew today.