FEATHERED friends will have a new place to socialise thanks to an artist-inspired bird hide.

The new meeting place at Cleveland Lakes, near Ashton Keynes, has been created as part of the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund project and will sit among the newly created reedbeds, commissioned by the Cotswold Water Park Society.

The bird hide has been designed by local wildlife artist Helen Shackleton and will be made out of sustainable materials, such as oak, hazel, willow and earth.

Helen drew her inspiration from the spiralling structure of the common reed and its significance as a wonderful wetland habitat.

The hide will be approximately six metres in diameter, with large viewing windows.

The roof of the hide will consist of 18 leaves arranged in a cantilevered spiral and ranging in length from 3.8 metres to 10 metres.

The roofspace has been designed especially to encourage bats to roost, as many of their habitats are being lost through development.

Each leaf is being manufactured by hand at another local company, Exis UK, of Bristol, which has created many imaginative exhibitions and displays at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, SS Great Britain, in Bristol, and in Lacock, near Chippenahm, plus at a number of other sites around the UK and abroad.

Lesley Greene, who is managing the arts and community part of the ALSF project, said: "Most bird hides just look like garden sheds with large windows, so we wanted to commission a structure that was innovative, exciting and iconic.

"We hope that it will also encourage people who would not normally think of visiting a hide either to go there to watch birds or just spend some time in such a unique building."

The hide will be sited overlooking the largest heronry in Wiltshire, with extensive views over Cleveland Lakes where, throughout the winter, many thousands of visiting birds can be seen.

Pupils from South Cerney and Cricklade primary schools have been involved in the construction of, and interpretation for, the bird hide with one group helping to construct the rammed earth walls, while another group will be working with a local poet on a creative interpretation for the approach to the bird hide.

The hide will be complete by the end of March, but progress can be tracked on the Cotswold Water Park website which can be found at www.waterpark.org.