ALONG THE RIVER BANK THE LIVING COUNTRYSIDE 

 Reader’s Digest, various contributors 1983.

Most of us have a popular vision of a river. The image we conjure up of it’s source usually includes windswept mountains and a narrow cascading stream tumbling past boulder-strewn moorland.

The picture changes as the stream matures into a river; dropping through grazed uplands, it’s mood can change from a relaxed descent alongside guardian trees and fringing herbs to one of youthful exuberance over tumbling rock falls. On the lowland approaches to the estuary, the idealised river takes on a soporific air amid weeping willows and waterlilies as senility and salinity approach in a seemingly aimless meander to the sea.

Alas, few rivers conform to our dreams. No rivers in south-east England have sources with highly effervescent characteristics, while few north of the border have relaxed lowland reaches. It is for this reason that the plant and animal communities in rivers in different parts of the country vary so much.

The flashing , cool mountain stream is the home of lowly algae, mosses and liverworts, streamlined invertebrates requiring highly oxygenated water, spawning salmon and bobbing dippers.

In contrast, the lowland river favours colourful flowers, coarse fish, moorhens nesting on reed-fringed banks, foraging water voles and damselflies skimming over warm water surfaces.

Between them may be waterfalls, earth cliffs, shingle islands and many other environments. Each supports it’s own blend of wildlife – the greater the variety of habitats in a river, the greater is the diversity of plants and animals.

Rivers, and the connecting mosaic of habitats which constitute the corridor through which they flow, are thus the most important ‘linear’ habitat in Britain.

The book is packed with full colour photographs, diagrams, charts and details of the flora and fauna of the river. It has pictorial cover boards rather than a dust jacket and is in excellent condition. A superb item for any wild life section of your bookcase.