Bridge House

The river bank along the grounds of Bridge House is quite steep with a fair amount of balsam on both sides.

The view from the riverbed

 We cleared a lot but there is still more to do, particularly on the side opposite to Bridge House.

Thanks to Neil for the photos and apologies to Jen who spent most of the afternoon working alone on the top of the bank thus missing out on photo opportunities!

Along the river bed at Glebelands

With the temperature in the high 20s, it was pleasant to wade along the river bed in the shade of the trees.

We cleared a lot of balsam growing low down on the riverbanks and in difficult to reach areas on the Meadow Mead  side of the river. Unfortunately there is still one large clump of very large plants which is difficult to get at either from the river bed or through the undergrowth on the bank.

Although the river level was low, there are still a few deep spots where we could see lots of fish (chub?).

Finally I saw this plant flowering right down at water level but haven't yet managed to identify it.

Upstream from Black Rocks

Almost exactly a year ago we paid a first visit to the area of little islands between Black Rocks and Cogmill. On that occasion, the river was too deep to wade and the area was almost covered in Balsam. We had to revisit the following week to finish clearing.

In contrast, this year the river was not much more than ankle deep and there was far less balsam to clear. However some plants were already more than two metres tall and the first flowers had appeared.

We were able to clear all of the little islands and some of the field edge on the far bank. Another visit in a few weeks time will probably be necessary to tidy up any stragglers which we missed amongst the tangled undergrowth and also to tackle more along the field edge.