It is a still, sunny spring day in Goldrill Beck, a meandering river in the Ullswater Valley in Cumbria’s magnificent Lake District. Cradled by mountains, this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is slowly waking up after winter. Brown and white Herdwick sheep graze in a neighbouring paddock, while clumps of soft rushes poke up through the waterlogged grassland.
The unpolluted river trickles fast but shallow, leaving gravel deposits along every bend, ‘redds’ for critically endangered Atlantic salmon to lay their eggs, which will become nurseries for fry as they emerge. And like the baby salmon, this environment is in its infancy – at the start of a journey of transformation. At a time when the UK’s rivers are at their most vulnerable, it’s a sight for sore eyes.
Of course, you would expect a bucolic scene like this in the Lake
