Walton Lake rennovation





The river Ousel by the OU

Wednesday - a lovely sunny morning, so I made sure I made a space in the day for a lunch time walk. It's been ages since I did this! I grabbed the camera from the car and headed to the paths across the Ousel and towards Walton Lake.

 I could hear the usual robins, blackbirds and tits in the trees but most were high up and all were being discrete. More signs of the mild weather though. Not only were the daisies popping up along the path, this one was feeding a hover fly.

I got a surprise when I got to the lake though. Walton Lake is a former flood control balancing lake, but onve Caldecotte and Furzton Lakes were completed it's role was obsolete, so the Parks Trust have allowed it to develop into a reed bed.  Over the winter they have been working hard on maintaining the lake habitat. It had become almost fully choked with reeds,  with little open water.



Access to Walton Lake - new vista!



This has now been rectified as the pictures here show.  Trees trimmed and coppiced, reeds cleared channels dredged.   It will be interesting to see what difference this makes to the wildlife. Inoticed some of the channels have floating nest boxes anchored, so hoefully we will see an increase in diversity there. Watch this space!




New channel




Open Water!