A Wonderful Weekend
I live near Monmouth and am lucky enough to be able to walk from my house into some woods where I can listen to bird song and watch the changing light, depending on the time of year, day, and weather.
I can also walk into town across the Wye bridge, but sadly this is not so enchanting at present. In the last five years, only five years, it has changed from a river full of fish and wildlife to a smelly, sad river with large mushroom shaped plumes of algae. This can be lethal to dogs who swim in the river and harmful to humans as well as to life on and in the river. There used to be more than 20 swans to be seen at any one time, many with multiple cygnets, now we only see one or two and the cygnets find it hard to survive with the lack of food. Conversely there are many more Canada geese because they can graze the surrounding grasses more effectively. As to be expected these days it is down to short-sighted human pollution, water extraction, climate change and the lack of political will.