December 26th – I headed to Chasewater, which was brooding and quiet.
Quiet that is, apart from the bickering, squabbling flock of waterfowl of every shape and size gathering around the boardwalk balcony as someone fed them seed.
The water boiled with desperate pecks and defensive wing flaps. There were fights, squabbles, pecked heads and nipped tails.
We all love these lakeside clowns. But man alive, they have no manners…
October 12th – The united colours of… a Black Country Autumn, on the canal at Bentley Bridge.
I can moan about Autumn all I like, but that’s just stunning.
October 6th – For all my (uncharacteristic) shoe-gazing, there was brightness; in the nasturtiums growing from a pavement fissure near a cellar hatch; in the flowers of the River Gardens and it’s rather cheeky robin, and in the swans and their goose-pal napping where once rowing boats were hired.
The love-lock restriction amused, as you’d need a seriously large one to clamp on the Jubilee Bridge, and the cleverly named coffeeshop made me double take.
It was an afternoon as English as tuppence, really, and I did rather enjoy the self-indulgent introspection of it.
July 29th – I met the Watermead swan family who were making fair speed along the canal back from Chasewater towards Brownhills, but old habits die hard and they drifted from their central course to see me, just in case I had food. I didn’t, and they were visibly irritated.
The five youngsters are now pretty much the size of their parents and their adult, white plumage is starting to come through.
Another successful brood for these experienced parents marks out another good year for local swans. But where are the youngsters going every year?
June 12th – Here’s something to gladden the heart.
It was sad to lose one of the Watermead swan brood, but a lady who’s been nesting for an awful long time in a Walsall Wood canalside garden has finally hatched a pair of chicks.
As I returned from work, mom and day were proudly taking to the water with their two cygnets – one for a while tucked protectively under mum’s wing.
Watching it emerge and swim excitedly with it’s sibling was a real joy.
I honestly thought her eggs were not going to hatch. A wonderful sight.
June 11th – On a post repair test ride, bad news.
The Watermead swan family are now down to five from the original six. The remaining cygnets looked healthy and well though.
Most likely the victim of a hungry fox, it’s normal to lose a cygnet or two to predators in every urban clutch – we’ve been lucky in recent years to be relatively unscathed, but one has to remember the prodigious clutch sizes of these birds and consider that maybe some population control is natural.
When the youngsters start ground roosting separately as opposed to in a protective huddle, they are easy prey to Reynard and hopeful, the loss has been a warning to the remaining five.
Sad, so very sad – but it’s nature, red in tooth and claw.
June 4th – Nice to see the waterfowl families doing so well. At Silver Street, I noted the Watered family were growing fast, and were still six in number, while the Canada geese had combine broods to give a mammoth grouping of 15…
At the moment, everything is growing and it’s wonderful.
June 2nd – I just beat the rain on my way home, and speeding along the canal near Clayhanger, I stopped briefly to chat to this lone bandit, for no other reason than he came to say hello.
The lone swans without partners and clutches are often overlooked at this time of year, in favour of the antics of the many families that have sprung up along the canals – but the lone swans are still as wonderfully curious and nosey as ever.
Such truculent, difficult birds – but I do love them so.
May 28th – I set out on a sunny afternoon to pay a visit to Fazeley floating market, and on the way, hopped on the canal from Brownhills to Newtown to see if I could spot the Watermead swan family, just to see how they were doing.
I found them, unusually, near Anchor bridge; still six cygnets in umber and mum and dad still very, very attentive – but my, they’re growing – and they’ll soon be losing that characteristic fluffiness.
Nice to see the family prospering.
May 20th – I popped out for a short run on shopping errands to Brownhills, in a gap in the rain. I caught up with the watered swan family on the ramp between the Canoe Centre and the basin on the corner – the youngsters, still numbering six, were lounging and taking naps under the watchful eye of mum and dad.
The adults weren’t at all aggressive with me, so they must be getting used to the human attention, but I was glad of the zoom to keep me out of pecking range.
It’s clearly very tiring work, being cute.
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