Nature

Swanpool Lake is the most important of eleven brackish lagoons in Britain. The brackish conditions enable a wide variety wildlife to thrive. One species - The Trembling Sea Mat - is found nowhere else in the UK.
The lake you see in the picture used to be part of the sea. The area was cut off by a shingle bar which formed after the last Ice Age, and a freshwater lake was created. The lake was three times larger and its water level three metres higher than it is today. The road that you cannot see but runs between the lake and the beach sits upon the original shingle bar.
In 1826 a culvert was dug through the bar draining much of the lake into the sea and leaving the water level that is shown. Water still drains out of Swanpool through the culvert at the southern end, almost underneath where I stood to take the picture. However, at high spring tides sea water rises above the culvert and flows back into Swanpool.
Paddy and I walk around the lake usually once a week as part of our routines, he can sit and look at the ducks, coots, moorhens and swans for ages if you let him.
The weather has meant that we have largely had the beach to ourselves on our recent visits.
We finished our walk at the rugby club and watched the last ten minutes of the 2’s draw with Saltash.
Dry January is going well.