River Nene

Back to paid fieldwork today, and our annual visit to record the ditches of Bradley Fen, which is part of the Nene Washes SPA. It's always a tiring survey, involving a long trek over monotonous grassland which was made worse this year by the fact that part of the site hadn't been grazed, and there were areas of dense nettle and thistle to negotiate.

Having made an early start, we'd finished by 2pm, and on the way back to the car we spent a bit of time looking at the fish feeding in the River Nene. I've never seen such large shoals of roach - in places the water seemed to be seething with them. I took a photograph of this straightened stretch of water with Peterborough in the background - a very typical fenland view.