BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

On a bike, riding somewhere. Every day, rain or shine.

Posts tagged ‘swans’

#365daysofbiking A day out of time

1st January 2021 – A ride out with Pickle on the oddest, most lovely New Year’s Day I’ve ever known. Sixty-five miles of absolute, total restorative riding. And not a moment too soon.

We set out early afternoon on a slow bimble on a sunny, bright but very windy day, marked most memorably by the warmth – it was at times 15 degrees out there. Everything was still sodden, and occasionally we rode through floodwater, but on the whole, the roads were quickly drying out and everything was very springlike.

We rode up through Hilton and Chesterfield to Shenstone, then over Shenstone Park, which looked even more like the set of the Teletubbies than it normally does. We went on up to the old A5 through Weeford and down into Hopwas and Wigginton to Syerscote, Clifton, Honey Hill, No Mans Heath, Austrey, Orton, Warton, Polesworth, Birch Coppice and Hurley. We came back up through Kingsbury Water Park, Bodymoor Heath and Carroway Head, Woodend and Stonnall.

The other thing that marked the day is that the normally grey and colourless light of this time of year was temporarily replaced by bright greens and a feeling of spring. It’s like all the time we were inside, or getting wet, we were earning this day: this ride. It was fabulous to be out in.

Pickle noted particularly the swans grazing on some winter crop of brassicas, which is important. We can’t feed waterfowl locally at the moment due to an avian flu outbreak that his killed many birds. People are concerned the swans that normally live in our parks are not able to eat – but these refugees from central Tamworth have flown out to dine al fresco on what the farmland has to offer, and as Pickle said, they seemed very socially distanced.

Clifton Hall continued to bewilder – the twin, red brick, foursquare mansions that were apparently intended to be one, but the wings were built first, and the central part never completed. Pickle observed that it was probably a good house for a couple that were no longer communicating well, but still in love. She’s probably right.

I had no idea it had been derelict for many years and only refurbished and inhabited relatively recently.

You can find out about Clifton Hall here.

As we reached the crossover point between day and night – I love the concept of civil twilight – we laboured up Honey Hill, on the road out of Clifton towards the junction of four counties at No Mans Heath. Honey Hill is a hard climb, windswept, and generally a summer place: But today it was just right. The views commanded were beautiful, and the ride had really encouraged a spirit of optimism for the year to come.

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#365daysofbiking A likely story


Wednesday February 17th 2021 – On the canal at Walsall Wood, a familiar pair of beaky chancers come towards me hoping for food.

They make out they haven’t eaten for weeks, that they’re starving to death, and also they’ll feed my body to the pike if I don’t cough up a treat.

But unluckily for them, I’m empty handed, my usual small bag of corn left in the garage after filling; fortunately they seem in a rudeness of health that matches their people skills, and despite their menace, only hiss at me and scud off, to browse the canal bottom for tasty green goo.

Waterfowl can’t half turn on the sob story…

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#365daysofbiking Atmospheric pressure

Sunday November 29th 2020 – The weather was still awful, but resolved to make a better time of it, I set out with a good friend to try and capture the mist and light as best we could.

Sometimes, on the greyest, most horrible nights magic happens, and tonight, it did just that.

Mist and electric light can make the most industrial places look stunning – those swans are on a thin ribbon of canal between a waste transfer station and a scrapyard.

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#365daysofbiking Hiding in the dark

Monday November 2nd 2020 – A windy, wet day with little to commend it. I took this photo from Catshill Junction bridge in the pitch dark on a long exposure and it’s not great, but does show the movement in the skyline well.

It was a foul, wet night – it’s rare I leave the towpath to hit the High Street due to mud and slipperiness but I did tonight.

But one thing redeemed the shot: I never realised the swan family were there, hiding in the dark.

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#365daysofbiking Supervision

April 17th – Near Newtown, just near the A5 bridge on the canal, another wonderful sign of spring on a grey afternoon: The swans are nesting here.

This is the first nest I’ve seen in this spot and I think it’s probably the mystery couple from last year who suddenly seemed to appear with hatched chicks, which I think had been incubated in a nest out of sight behind a moored boat.

I noted one bird was supervising while the other did the work. I have no doubt that if the one watching could have folded its wings, it would have done…

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#365daysofbiking Obtrusive

April 6th – Working from home when I can means shorter exercise rides, so I try to make them quite challenging in the short time I’m out, mindful of the busybodies who currently seem to be revelling in their mantel as self-appointed lockdown police.

I hammered a fast, offroad circuit of Brownhills, and up around the track that runs around the new pond at Clayhanger. The heavily rutted, drying out trails are quite fun and I enjoyed the sight of swans pairing off on the water below.

Lots of people who formerly wouldn’t walk are doing so now; taking advantage of their daily exercise allowance. This is making me feel quite obtrusive: Quiet routes and trails that were usually mine alone I now share with those new to them.

I’m surprised nobody has got lost on the common yet…

Adapting to all this will take a while.

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#365daysofbiking Always a disappointment

February 13th – And on the canal further on, the usual characters are regrouping for the spring rituals. Soon, shady aggressive beggars like this lad will be building nests and chasing off any unwelcome visitors.

For now he was grumpy with me because I had no food.

He glared and honked at me from the water, his contempt at my lack of largesse painfully clear.

To swans, I will always be a disappointment.

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#365daysofbiking Please avenge my death if necessary

February 1st – Later, returning with some shopping and wheeling my bike up the canalside on Silver Street, I met these aggressive beggars.

True, I had a bag of shopping which included a French loaf. I guess they know what a human with food looks like. They thought I’d come to feed them.

They were wrong. There was a bit of a standoff, lots of hissing and a fair bit of irritated swearing. By me, not the geese, it has to be said.

Thankfully, I found some emergency corn in my coat pocket, and that distracted the hungry assailants.

If by chance one day I do not survive one of these encounters with the Canada geese, I expect readers of this journal to avenge my death if necessary.

Thank you.

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#365daysofbiking Getting the bird

November 17th – Another rain sodden day. I know this is getting repetitive if you read these posts in series, but this is seriously what life here is like at the moment. It’s been so wet for weeks now that I’ve stopped grumbling at having to go out in it; it’s just a sort of a new normal.

The state of this is weird.

Down in Brownhills on a shopping trip, a wander over to the canalised for a loop over to Walsall Wood. The birds here – gulls, mallards, swans, geese and more – didn’t seem as tired of the rain as me, but they did seem a bit fractious. Maybe they were missing human feeding, which on a normal Sunday would be almost constant here.

I notice the goose with the white feathers on it’s head is still around. It’ll be interesting to track it over the winter, and see if it mates or if the colour discrepancy renders it an outsider…

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#365daysofbiking The colours of the night

November 3rd – I was hoping the inversion had settled on Chasewater, as that can be stunningly beautiful – but sadly, it was as clear as a bell, and the same went for Brownhills too.

My companion and I busied ourselves with long exposure shots of the beautiful, deep sunset, which was sadly short lived but enchantingly purple, and of the skyline and clouds which were really quite pronounce at times.

Returning down the Black Path through Holland Park, the sodium lights there mixed beautifully with the autumn colours to make a very isolated, spooky place hauntingly beautiful.

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