Tag: water

June 21st – A pleasant ride out to Blithfield Reservoir on a more settled, but no less windy afternoon. I hadn’t been this way for a couple of years and the villages, hamlets and countryside are beautiful.

Blithfield was created in the 1950s to supply water to Stafford. It’s a lovely haven for birds – an the ice cream van at the north end of the causeway still serves the best cones!

June 9th – Further up the canal at Bentley Bridge, another yellow wonder of the season: the water lilies are just coming out. These yellow ones are first, then later come the pink-wihite variety.

These seem good for bugs, and add an interesting shock of colour to the waterways. Seeing them is always the sign of an advancing season.

May 23rd – Here’s an odd one. Half way up the hill, on the steep, long climb out of the manifold valley to Throwley, there’s a sheep trough on Farewell Lane. It’s a good kilometre in either direction to the nearest dwelling, and this is remote, wind-blown country. 

I stopped to lean my bike up against the trough while I got something to eat and admire the view. In it’s depths, I noticed something orange: a 6 inch long, healthy looking goldfish.

People have suggested it is put there by farmers to eat the eggs of some animal parasite – but I have no idea. It’s a very odd place to dump a fish, but I suppose it’s egg could have been transported from another pond on the feet of some bird.

A real oddity. Suggestions welcome.

May 18th – At Clayhanger on the canal, in a much more temperate commute than my journey to work, I stopped to watch the overflow, which was overtopping well. The canal seems to have been low for a week or two, and is now back to full. I always love to see how clear the water is, such a change from the polluted soup it was when I was a kid.

So full of life and such a valuable green highway these days.

May 7th – I notice that on Jockey Meadows, the pasture field that’s genuinely a water meadow is now staffed by a heard of beef cattle again. About 10 or 12 large animals are browsing the scrub in an effort to maintain it – the cows eat the fast growing plants, and give the slow-growers chance. They also spread the fertile love in the form of cowpats.

Every time I passed them this week, the coos have been far over the other side. Only did I notice when I’d zoomed in that a passing heron was doing his bit too.

March 24th – Compression of the neck… herons are more and more common now. Barely a towpath ride goes by without seeing one, and on longer rides like last week, I’ll see five or six, which must be a symbol of how clean the waters are now and how the fish population must by bountiful, too. 

This proud bird was on the towpath in Pleck, just by the wall of Rollingmill Street Cemetery, pretty much the industrial heart of Walsall. Wary of me but not skittish, by dismounting the bike and taking things gently I got close enough for some decent pictures, I think.

I adore herons.

March 22nd – I’m a big fan of Middleton Lakes, the former quarry and gravel pit complex handed to the RSPB. Situated on the Tame near Kingsbury, these mixed habitat wetlands and lakes are a haven for birds of all varieties, and are now attracting bird spotters from across the country.

I remember this in the late 2000s and before, when it was an active site, with conveyors and huge machines operating; now it’s a peaceful haven. In the last couple of years though, work has been carried out installing flood defences in the form of walls and an earth dyke, which stop the Tame flowing into the adjacent canal. The work has been sensitive and well executed.

I noticed today, however, the site was a good bit more manicured than formerly; there are gravel paths snaking over the site, and the odd portacabin. What had once been almost wild seems to be being reigned back in, and I think Middleton Lakes are in danger of becoming over-managed, with little distinction between them, and Kingsbury Water Park adjacent.

This is a great place; I hope it isn’t spoiled.

February 26th – Mind you, I say Birmingham is getting better at change, but… this is the real face of the ‘New’ New Street and the preposterously named ‘Grand Central’ project. This place constantly has leaks. Often when it hasn’t rained for days. To walk through the station now is to squelch through wet patches on concourses, platforms and passageways.

This cannot, in any shape or form, be a good sign.