Paraglider at Haresfield Beacon

The members of the Lansdown Hall working group gathered together this morning to assess the next steps for the hall's redevelopment. I've mentioned it before, and I probably will again, as we are likely to be meeting for several years. Fundraising is our major concern and we are awaiting the results of two major applications to grant distributing bodies, which we expect to hear about next month. Until then we can't make decisions, but we still need to sort out some legal issues, keep an eye on various repairs and think up new ways to find money.

After we'd finished I had to meet the town clerk to plan the agenda for the next finance committee meeting in ten days time, as well as checking on some other issues. All this voluntary work takes so much time. Amanda, our mayor, was at the working group meeting and she reminded me that she was going to represent the views of the council at the long running planning appeal inquiry into the Javelin Park waste incinerator. I decided I would go to support her and possibly take some pictures for our archive, which we might use on the website and in our next newsletter.

So I drove over the hills to the outskirts of Gloucester, where the inquiry was being conducted at a local hotel. The sun was shining and it was good to be out in the countryside again. I didn't stay long after Amanda had given her speech, and instead of heading straight home, I took a winding and quiet back road that I hadn't driven along before. It followed the base of the Cotswold escarpment where the rather undulating clay vale formed by the river Severn provides easier farming land. I dawdled and stopped a few times to better look at the fields and the wider landscape and decided I must return in warmer weather to explore the old farms and the hamlets dotted about the area.

I spotted a narrow single track road signposted to Haresfield Beacon and realised where I was, and turned up it as I had never driven up or down that way before. At the Beacon there is an old iron age camp occupying a prominent position on three spurs on the Cotswold escarpment. From there are wonderful views down and across the Severn estuary, towards the Forest of Dean and the Brecon Beacons in the far distance. With its dramatic topography, intimate woodlands, extensive grasslands and exposed and wild promontory hill fort the National Trust site offers a variety of good walks, some on open traditional grassland the rest through thick woods on the top and the steep sides of the hills which rise up above the north-west of Stroud.

As I reached the top and came out of the woods, I noticed a paraglider flying just above my head. I parked and walked along the promontory to some open land at the top of the slope looking south, and snapped some pictures of the glider gently cruising about on the strong breezes. The views from there were good and the glider kept quite low to pick up the ascending air from the steep hillside. At one point as I followed its flight just above the trees of a wood I saw that a kestrel was hovering at exactly the same height and only a matter of twenty or so metres from the glider. It seemed unconcerned and the flyer was obviously enjoying flying close to this beautiful bird sharing its element. My position meant that I was actually slightly higher than the kestrel and could look down on it as it hovered.

I have added some other pictures from there to this Flickr gallery, including a couple of the kestrel.