Phew, what a scorcher!

By the session leader:

What better place to be on the hottest day of the year so far, than in water at 10 degrees?

Yes, in it:

Our task today was to clear a chalkstream of some of its superfluous vegetation.  Since we were last on site, the watercress had set new records for growth:

There is meant to be a stream here somewhere …

We worked steadily and calmly with frequent rehydration, thanks to a couple of flasks of iced water:

[On behalf of all the team, thank you, session leader for doing “the water run.” – Ed.]

We were a smallish number, but progress was as always most satisfying and deserving of our motto “you can see where we've been.”  In this case, you can now see the line of the stream:

Our reward?  Besides the fact that it was just such fun, splashing about in the stream on what was almost a perfect English summer’s day once a bit of breeze had got going, there were also some interesting nature ‘finds’.  Here, an abandoned egg – probably that of a moorhen (Gallinula chloropus):

The dipping pond, which we helped surround in turf, has come to life.  It is only a year old, and already the creatures have moved in: tadpoles galore (a bit late, but they came), baby newts (newtlets?) with their frilly gills, pond skaters, whirlygig beetles, snails, damsel flies, a dragon fly, flat worms and all sorts of nymphs and lavae.  How many can you spot?  [Do not include the site warden in your score! – Ed.]

And in this video, a damsel is escaping.  He had got trapped on the surface, and was being attacked by beetles and a water boatman.  I was not allowed to intervene, but had to let nature take its course.  If you can hear a noise in the background of the film, that’ll be a chain saw being deployed further upstream – nothing to do with us!