Towards the turning point of my fourth walk from the past (June 2011), I reached the banks of the River Loughor as it runs through the salt marshes in its estuary. The sun was down and I think the image above may be less easy to capture today as between 2011 and 2016 a local farmer allowed his herd of cows onto the marshes and they did a thorough job of trampling the tall marsh grasses to obliteration.
Having said that, it is difficult to obliterate nature completely and as the cows have not been there this year, the grasses are showing a healthy return even if they have yet to reach the elevation they subsequently enjoyed. There have been other changes in those 5 or 6 years though – the banks of the river have been further eroded and much of that strip of land has slipped into the waters taking the reeds and grasses with it.
This looks like a perfect evening walk.
Is the erosion natural or man-made? Or a bit of both maybe?
Thanks Allysse and sorry I didn’t manage to share to your monthly nature sound post this month – we have been away in Scotland on holiday and I will use some material from that in posts in a couple of weeks.
If you go back about a century I think you might find there was some dredging of the river as our small town was very busy with industry at that time but to my knowledge there has never been any manipulation of the course of the river or its bank erosion slowed my man. Further up the valley there is a wonderful example of meandering which will in (not much) time will become a classic oxbow lake.
No worries 🙂
I hope your holiday in Scotland was good. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve recorded.
Thanks for the information 🙂 It’s nice to know the river has mostly been left to its own of late.
You’re welcome. Now I have to get back down to work, always a struggle after a holiday
Fabulous!!!
Thanks Barbara – there’s nothing like a good sunset, however many of them you see 🙂