The superb countryside through which the River Wye flows on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border, England.
Commentary.
The exquisitely beautiful valley of the River Wye is seen here from Symond’s Yat Rock.
In hundreds of thousands of years its course has eroded down through numerous layers of Carboniferous Limestone,
and further, through Devonian Old Red Sandstone.
Not so much the present river, but post-glacial flows, perhaps a hundred times the present flow, gouged a veritable canyon or gorge through this section.
A series of delectable, graceful, sweeping meanders have undercut rock-faces up to 500 feet in height on the fast-flowing outer curves.
Weathered crannies in the limestone face provide nesting sites for Peregrine Falcons.
R.S.P.B. volunteers and ornithologists are frequently observing these birds of prey swooping down to the river
to retrieve food for their brood of chicks.
A myriad of rounded deciduous trees tumble down the steep cliffs.
Spruce plantations intersperse with the broadleaf woodland
on the inner bluffs.
Hereford cattle graze the lush river-side meadows.
On its protracted weaving course from Plynlimon in Central Wales to its mouth near Chepstow the Wye carves an amazing valley at the western fringes of the Forest of Dean.
The superb countryside through which the River Wye flows on the Gloucestershire/Herefordshire border, England.
Commentary.
The exquisitely beautiful valley of the River Wye is seen here from Symond’s Yat Rock.
In hundreds of thousands of years its course has eroded down through numerous layers of Carboniferous Limestone,
and further, through Devonian Old Red Sandstone.
Not so much the present river, but post-glacial flows, perhaps a hundred times the present flow, gouged a veritable canyon or gorge through this section.
A series of delectable, graceful, sweeping meanders have undercut rock-faces up to 500 feet in height on the fast-flowing outer curves.
Weathered crannies in the limestone face provide nesting sites for Peregrine Falcons.
R.S.P.B. volunteers and ornithologists are frequently observing these birds of prey swooping down to the river
to retrieve food for their brood of chicks.
A myriad of rounded deciduous trees tumble down the steep cliffs.
Spruce plantations intersperse with the broadleaf woodland
on the inner bluffs.
Hereford cattle graze the lush river-side meadows.
On its protracted weaving course from Plynlimon in Central Wales to its mouth near Chepstow the Wye carves an amazing valley at the western fringes of the Forest of Dean.