Juvenile duck after a dive at Fromehall mill pond

G and B, who are friends I’ve known for more than fifty years, are coming to stay overnight on their way to a ferry which sails from Plymouth. They live in Lincolnshire but are going to spend a couple of months at their house in Extramadura in eastern Spain. I had hoped to go to stay with them there for a couple of weeks but don’t think I can make it this year.

I booked a service and MOT for our car early in the morning to make sure I’d get back in time to welcome G and B. The small local garage are very friendly and I decided to hang about the garage rather than return home. As the weather was fair, with no rain actually falling, I went for a walk with my camera to the nearby Fromehall Mill. I am always keen to see it as part of the mill, the originals Cotswold stone built water mill, is in very poor condition and is a building that the Stroud Preservation Trust has been concerned about for many years. I have even been to meet the owner to check on what their plans were for remedying the water damage that is causing so many problems. As it happened the man tried to reassure us that it was all in hand, which of course was absolute cobblers. He is allowing the place to get so damaged that we think he wants to make it derelict so that it can be torn down and modern houses built on the site beside the river Frome.

When I saw the building which is totally unoccupied, unlike the last time I went about two years ago, I could see that damage was even worse. I’ll send some pictures to our trustees and to the relevant department of the District Council, the Conservation Officer, but I have little hope that they will do anything. It is a Grade 2 Listed building. The Trust can only encourage owners to look after their properties, so we can’t do anything directly. Here is my blip of the building in 2016 :((

I wandered on a path to the mill pond, which is a very peaceful place and much liked by local walkers. When I arrived I said hello to a man walking a dog nearby. Within a few seconds he called out and pointed across the lake, as he saw I had a camera. “The otters are there’. Unfortunately by the time I realised where they were, a trail of bubbles in the water was all I could see leading under a bush on the bank where they’d disappeared to climb the few yards to the river beyond.

A few minutes later this unusual duckling made a beeline for me, probably hoping for food. It swam around a couple of yards away from where I stood on the bank, and then proceeded to make short dives down to the mud a couple of feet below the surface of the pond, popping up for a few seconds, looking at me and then repeating the dive. This went on for a couple of minutes before it became distracted. I thought it was rather an interesting little duck but have no idea what its species is. The light ring around its eye seems quite unusual, having looked at references to duck species in a book.