Stanground Wash

Despite feeling very tired, I wanted to make use of an unaccastomed free day. After breakfast Pete and I headed to the Wildlife Trust reserve at Stanground Wash, which I'm photographing this year. I'd seen water violet on a previous visit and thought it would be flowering. If I'd realised how cool, grey and breezy it was going to be, I might not have bothered.

This is a view across Moreton's Leam towards the washes, which are now being grazed by sheep and cattle, including a few British White cows with very small calves. Morton's Leam predates the major fen drainage scheems of the eighteenth centure, being dug in 1490. The work was planned and supervised by Bishop John Morton, lord of the manor of Wisbch, who is said to have viewed the operations from a raised scaffold in order to ensure the drain was keeping to a straight line.

We returned home for a cup of cofee and then took Rosie for a walk along the Nene at Sutton. By this time the sun had broken through and it felt pleasantly warm. The first large mayflies of the year were hatching, and the banded demoiselles were fluttering along the river edge in much better numbers than last year. We found some good areas of limestone grassland, inlcuidng a very large population of field mouse-ear, a very rare species locally. On the way back we had a long chat withthe farmer, who said he would be happy for us to visit the nearby disused railway cutting, which had a very rich flora when I last visited over twenty years ago.