The end of an epic journey

 We found this dead salmon, on Christmas Eve, in Waskerley beck, a tributory of the river Wear at Wolsingham in Weardale. It had evidently swum upriver from the sea to spawn in shallow gravels and died of exhaustion, old age or disease - or perhaps from all three causes. Patches of fungal disease are clearly evident on its scales. Few salmon make it back to sea after they have spawned.

It would have begun life in the river as an egg, made its way downstream to the North Sea, then spent up to four years in  the sea before returning to its home river to spawn. The end of an epic journey.