May 27th – The birdlife on the canals of Birmingham and the Black Country is wonderful at the moment – everywhere there are goslings, cygnets and ducklings, and the herons were performing well, too – I particularly liked this guy’s Eddie Cochran impression.
Iff these don’t make you go ‘ahhh’, you’ve no soul…
May 23 – I get a bit tired sometimes of defending Brownhills, Walsall and the Black Country. People call all three dirty, unpleasant, polluted, ugly.
All these animals were seen on my journey to and from work today. There can’t be many urban situations where you pass deer and herons on a Monday morning, can there?
I particularly liked the cygnet preening, just like it’s mum.
I love this place.
May19th – I passed along the canal at Bentley Mill Way later than usual, and noted that the swan brood here had hatched. I say brood, but I’m not sure what the singular of brood actually is; momma swan clearly only laid one egg this year, the remnants of which are all I can see in the nest.
I noted the parents travelling down the canal with their cygnet between them, proud attentive parents. I also noticed an interested heron; lets hope he decided not to run the gauntlet of the angry swan couple.
This pair do seem to have small clutches. I hope little one survives.
May 11th – On the Walsall Canal, despite the grim weather, life was continuing as normal. There are coot chicks in abundance, and I’ve been savouring the excellent description of them by Phil Griffin as ‘looking like badly knitted moorhens’ – they certainly are odd little things.
There was blossom aplenty from lilac and ornamental cherry, and the heron paused in it’s preening to look crossly at me, as if I’d broken it’s train of thought.
All of this in a 50 metre stretch of canal in the centre of urban Walsall.
April 12th – On the Walsall Canal where the Anson Brach used to spur off between Bentley Bridge and Bentley Mill Way Aqueduct, the swans who I think nested in the abandoned basin last year are nesting anew.
Sadly, the nest isn’t well protected this year and I think an enterprising fox or heron – who fish here regularly – may end up with cygnet tea.
That’s if the phantom bread-flinger does’t chock the wee ones – sadly, the message that bread isn’t good for waterfowl doesn’t seem to be reaching all quarters. I know these folk mean well, but it’s not good for them.
Please, if you feed them, seed or greens instead.
April 11th – I spotted him near the Bentley Mill Way Aqueduct, perched in a tree. I haven’t seen many herons of late, so it was nice to see this neat, healthy looking specimen looking for a meal. This was very near where the swans are currently nesting and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was hoping to bag a cygnet for lunch.
As is usual with these wonderful birds, I scared him and he flew 30 metres or so down the canal, landing well away from me.
I love these wonderful, eccentric-seeming birds.
April 2nd – A cracking day. My seasonal clock a bit on the krunk, I went again to Shire Oak Nature Reserve to see if there were amorous amphibians getting busy, only to find none, but some spawn remaining. Clearly, I missed frog soup this year; however, some spawn under the overhanging trees that clearly couldn’t be reached by the dining heron I sacred off was, remarkably, hatching.
Yup, tadpoles are hatched.
There’s a running joke amongst my pals that one should be careful to check my hands for tadpoles and other wildlife slimies before shaking hands.
The cycle of life continues in a small corner of the town, largely undisturbed, as it has done for decades here. Poor heron had to go somewhere else for his tapioca meal, though…
March 12th – Ah, the waterbirds of Birmingham are also getting busy. Cormorants, tufted ducks (not goldeneye as I said on Twatter), herons and Canada geese are all regrouping for the spring. Good to see the herons back, I haven’t seen many at all lately, and the prehistoric appearance of the cormorants is always a great thing to see.
October 15th – In a factory yard in the darkest Black Country, a temporarily misplaced young hunter peers hopefully from a bund wall at standing water. There might be the odd frog, I guess, but no fish in there, sir.
He watched for a while, then, as if called, suddenly flew away. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.
This is why I adore the Black Country.
September 24th – For the first time this week, a really decent day with lots of sunshine, but the cold is creeping in – it barely crept over 16 degrees all day.
The birds on the local canals didn’t mind, though – the Walsall swan family were, as usual, hustling for treats, but the herons – a twtchy young gun in the morning and a more relaxed, slightly mad looking elder hand in the evening – were stubbornly self-sufficient, as ever.
I love to see these guys. They fair made my day.
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