Tag: birds

December 28th – I’ve heard of this before, but never seen it. In the Three Spires precinct in Lichfield, as dusk fell, a barely-noticed commotion of bird fuss broke the gentle susurration of continued consumerism below. One single tree out of several, decorated in Christmas lights in a fashion that must have taken someone bloody ages, what must have been a hundred or more pied wagtails.

I’d heard they flock. These nippy, twitchy little birds live off bugs generally, and are a common sight in car parks and factory yards and other areas of open hardstanding where they can hunt unhindered, but usually in ones and twos.

I don’t know if they came for the berries, or just a party. Certainly, nothing was bothering them. A remarkable sight I was lucky indeed to see.

November 29th – An early afternoon loop up to Chasewater of a warm but blowy day caught me in the rain once more. The canal was deserted and everything looked grey; Chasewater was little better. 

The wind was such that it drove groups of swans into the shallows over by the dam for shelter, and they didn’t look very happy about it; even the gulls loafed idly in the shallows.

I’m fed up of this weather. There has to be better spell on the horizon. This is grinding me down and making photography very hard!

October 27th – These berries are profuse all along the cycle paths of Telford, and I don’t really know what they are. Glossier and rounder than cotoneaster but similarly pea-sized, they come in colours from deep red to light pink and yellow. The berry-heads are very dense, yet the birds don’t seem to bother with them.

Anybody know what they are?

October 1st – Nice to see the cotoneaster going bright orange-red now. This pea-sized berry is unpalatable to humans, but songbirds, particularly blackbirds, love the sugary berries, and having found a bush, the blackbird male will fight off any challengers who would raid his winter larder.

A lovely splash of colour in autumn’s otherwise yellowy palette.

September 2nd – As I squelched past Jockey Meadows, I stopped to look for my mates the coos. I noted they were on the far side of the meadow as I rode past on my way to work, but they were too far away to make a good photo. On my return, they’d gone, which I was sad about.

However, this female pheasant seemed to be enjoying the opportunity for browsing presented by the freshly turned meadow. Off that she seems to have lost her tail-feathers. Didn’t seem to bother her, though.

August 16th – I spotted him near the Marina at Northwood Bridge in Aldridge. Clearly en repose, hunting seemed to be done for the day and this elderly heron was content to let me take photos without being disturbed.

There’s definitely an Eddie Cochran thing going on there. You don’t see much of that sort of thing in the local avian community, to be honest.

July 16th – He was singing to me as I cycled away from Telford Central station. It took me a while to spot him, in the crown of a nearby Douglas fir. His song was so joyful and life-affirming, the thought of the wee chap kept me smiling all morning.

If you have a song to sing, sing it like nobody is listening – because it’ll make the day of the person who unbeknown to you, is.

May 25th – I’ve found a little oasis I never realised existed, but more on my main blog later in the week. In the meantime, here’s a grey wagtail I watched for ages, fetching bugs and feeding it’s young in an outbuilding. At one stage, it was challenged by a robing for hunting rights.

An amazingly close experience I never thought I’d have.

May 18th – Ah, so commence the annual cygnet search. On the way to work in heavy rain and also on the way back, I looked over to the nest of the Pleck swans, and noted they weren’t on the nest. I couldn’t spot them between there and Darlaston either, so they’re probably roaming for food now. I’m concerned about them since the heron incident, but I’m sure they will be OK somewhere. Just a question of when I’ll spot them.

In the mean time, I had to content myself with the goslings that seem so numerous this year.

I love spring.