A hawk made a wide swing across the grassland and then suddenly dived, jerking up at the last second, its great wings straining as it pumped back into the air with added weight.
Except where they rise in the fens they call into life a strip of fertile grassland in the midst of the barren sand, and are responsible for the existence of many villages along their banks.
Playing fields, parks, motorway verges are new sources of grassland.
There is an estimated county total of seasonally inundated grassland of 481 acres, the proportion which is grazed is unknown.
The grassland was very parched with few butterflies in flight.