A walk at Frampton Court lake

Helena wanted to come with me to Frampton Court lake after my meeting at the town council. I had an interesting meeting with Kim C. who updated me on how the ongoing plans to upgrade the area around the town's station and particularly to deliver much needed access improvement. I have been involved with this project which I helped to start nearly ten years ago when I was a town councillor. 

Following the delivery of the Town Centre Neighbourhood Plan Kim has done brilliant work in advancing the project, which is very complicated with multiple land owners and differing agendas. Dealing with the owners of the railway is never easy. However I came away heartened and I'm going to carry on helping wherever I can.

So after a bite of lunch we headed to the west of Stroud to the lake. We both enjoy the peaceful waterside banks where we can sit and view the large lake and its associated  and varied bird life. 

Today the lake was relatively quiet with only about fifty geese, some barnacle and some greylag. But there were also various types of ducks, some coots, a few wagtails and two oystercatchers which i was particularly pleased to see, having heard that they'd been sighted recently.

Last summer I counted more than sixty swans feeding on the lake at one time. Today there were only about ten scattered around the the three islands sited in the middle of the large expanse of water. I was  pleased to see these three mute swans taking off and flying across the back of the lake from where we were and heading off into the sky.

Helena's blip shows a wider view of the very peaceful scene, with one of the islands full of breeding birds at the centre of the picture.