New River Path to Seven Sisters

I managed to walk this yesterday - it's mostly passable now, except for a few short muddy stretches. There has been work to clear all the reeds that were almost blocking the river and collecting floating rubbish; it did need clearing but the result is very 'scorched earth', although some shoots are re-growing at the edge.

This seems to have been done without much regard for nature and I'm worried about all the water birds which usually nest there at this time of year - there were far fewer around. The water still contains a fair bit of debris, both natural and human, and algae patches, and it's currently very shallow - I saw a coot which was trying to get out but could not climb the steep sides.