May 18th – On the way home, I checked out the Watermead swan family, still with 9 healthy cygnets, enjoying the sun near the canal overflow opposite Silver Street.
They all seem in good health, and the parents are very attentive. I think they’re too large now to be of interest to the local herons, but I hope mum and dad are vigilant for brer fox.
We usually lose one or two – let’s hope we don’t this year. Such a fine family.
April 17th – At Bishton, near Rugeley, on the Trent and Mersey Canal, someone has a very good excuse not to cut the lawn.
Imagine being able to look out of your window and see a swan nest only a few feet away!
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 4th – An odd day – heavy showers in the morning interspersed with bright, warm sunny periods, and a nightmare, torrential-rain soaked ride home. At lunchtime on an errand from work into Walsall, I have no idea what the pigeon was thinking, but it seemed happy. Walsall dripped, sparkled and glistened, and the swans at Bentley Bridge didn’t seem bothered.
The homeward trip was fun, but very wet. Flash floods hit the main roads and drains blew their covers. It was warm though, so not too bad.
I guess this are April showers, then…
April 2nd – Elsewhere around Clayhanger and Brownhills on this golden afternoon, momma swan was still giving me the evil eye from her nest on the canalside by the Watermead estate, but she did pause to stand and turn her eggs. The crested grebe still seems happy pottering on the canal near Walsall Wood, and continuing the mad, unsynchronised spring Spanish bluebells are flowering in a hedgerow at Clayhanger Common.
Spring is well underway, it’s warming up at last and everything is starting. Fantastic!
March 26th – Ah, spring’s escapement lurches, and the wheels of the season click forward a notch – the swans are nesting again at the Watermead Estate in Brownhills.
They seem to be in the same spot as last year, which is pretty well protected from vermin and out of reach of all but the most determined threat; I can’t be sure it’s the same birds, but it seems likely as a pair have nested here near the houses and canoe club for a good few years now.
Last year’s brood was large and successful – let’s hope for the same this year, and mum seems to be sitting already!
October 9th – Out of work at lunchtime, and off to Brum on an errand. Occasionally sunny, but mostly grey and chilly, a real autumn run into the city down the cycleway from Straitly through Stockland Green and Witton Lakes.
The lakes were beautiful, and the swans as charmingly truculent as ever. I’d still like to know who Georgina is and why she has a way. There is clearly a story there.
Returning on the canals and through the Sandwell Valley in a blue grey dusk, seeing the mist rise over the meadow at Ray Hall was a real ‘wow!’ moment.
A great ride, proving that the seasonal change is inevitable now.
August 19 – Some folk, of course, don’t even notice the rain and carry on regardless. After all, when you live on the water, what difference does a drop more make?
This cygnet – one of the Watermead family, still apparently in rude health – was just getting some greens as I splashed past near Silver Street.
I love the way these shoots are constantly cropped by the swans – it’s like their own little grazing patch.
June 18th – One sunny morning ride to work along the canal; a short stretch through Bentley Bridge and it’s teeming with wildlife.
The white water lilies are out, competing with themore profuse yellows. The Pleck swan family – now down to two cygnets from four initially, are clearly doing fine. And always, the ever present heron.
We’re so lucky to have all this on the doorstep.
June 15th – Here’s something that’s got me wondering: the Pleck swan family are back to their nest. These are the group I saw, who after hatching their eggs in the disused canal arm found themselves being intimidated by the heron. Next day, they’d gone. I never saw them again, but heard they’d scooted off to Moxley, a few miles up the canal.
Well, this morning, they were back: I was alerted by the dad patrolling the open water outside the arm, while mum was nest rebuilding with at least two little ones. When I last saw them, I counted four cygnets; if they’ve lost two, that’s sad, but no so bad.
I have no idea what they’re doing back at the nest and invite comments. Good to see them getting on, though.
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