Tag: wildlife

#365daysofbiking Family values

May 7th – It may be just me spending more time by the canal this year, but we seem to have a larger number than usual of waterfowl chicks about. It’s lovely and heart warming to see – and let’s face it, we all need a bit of cute and heartwarming at the moment.

The Canada geese have been particularly prolific, and everywhere I go on local canals I see gorgeous balls of fluff bobbing along between proud, defensive parents, or I meet hissing, protective aggression that requires careful negotiation.

A beautiful and very positive reminder that life goes on.

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#365daysofbiking Cut both ways

May 5th – The art of the daily exercise ride is quite weird. Used to normally commuting for my daily bike fix, the ride for the sake of it is, I’m ashamed to say, usually short and local.

It has, however, enabled me to get a grip back on what’s wonderful about the place I love and call home.

Here at Ogley Junction, standing on the cast iron footbridge as I have many, many times, on this warm evening it was hard not to be filled with pleasure at the sight of the peaceful canal, the only movement being languid waterfowl and birds swooping for bugs.

Such rides are measured by weight, not distance.

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#365daysofbiking – You shall not pass!

April 26th – Second attempt to sort the noisy bottom bracket appears to have worked. It’s true what they say, you’re never alone with a square taper chainset…

On a test run, I encountered this female mallard. Not a happy bird, it had settled on Coopers Bridge and was defying me to pass.

Unusual for mallards, as whilst fearsomely vicious to other ducks, and occasionally their own clutches, they are generally affable to anything else.

There was a bit of a Mexican standoff. Then she clearly remembered she was a duck, and flapped and honked her way back to the water, leaving the confused cyclist wondering what that was all about…

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#365daysofbiking – Multiplication

April 24th – A short exercise ride, still working from home, mostly. Despite the strangeness in everyday human society, the natural world continues as normal.

Nice to see the moorhens pairing off to mate. Such humble, unassuming little birds.

I keep saying it, but it’s the normal, beautiful events of spring that are keeping me going day to day at the moment.

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#365daysofbiking In the meadow

April 22nd – With this working from home malarkey (I still cannot get used to it) I’ve not been seeing some familiar places this spring, much if at all.

Jockey Meadows is one such place.

Usually one of the last places to show signs of spring, when I took my exercise ride today it was beautifully green, almost verdant. A real feast for the senses with bird and wildlife clearly happy and getting on with life in a way we can’t.

Hello old friend. Happy spring!

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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 Water carry on


March 24th – As I get older and wiser I realise that mallard ducks are just loud, shouty idiots with very unpalatable mating habits.

Here on the canal at Walsall Wood on my way to work, two males were competitively battling each other to mate with a female.

They were fighting for some time and the noise and disruption was considerable. Interesting that a coot seemed to be refereeing.

We are now under some kind of lockdown – I can only got to work if I can’t from home, or if I am a ‘key worker’; I can have some exercise every day and got to the shops. Most everything else is restricted or banned.

Unless you’re a duck. Then any old shit goes.

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#365daysofbiking An ever present weevil

March 21st – Saturday morning seemed brighter. A quick spin up the canal on an errand, and I noticed the azolla bloom – the green scum that’s been on the surface of the canal all winter – was finally breaking up as it’s prey weevil attacked it. This is normal for the lifecycle of this invasive growth and hopefully the weevils will finish the job.

That made me feel a bit better.

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#365daysofbiking Impressively tolerant

March 7th – The canal was a bad choice of route, as I realised after a short time that the toads were on the move, and the towpath was littered with amphibians taking the cold night air.

Heading to spawning waters, many would not make the perilous land journey from their normal habitats, being lost to traffic and, er… Bike wheels.

Fortunately, as far as I know, I didn’t hit any. I came back on the road, with the lights on full.

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#365daysofbiking A tempting brush with spring

March 1st – It was a gorgeous day for sure. Yes, everything was wet; despite overtopping the weir for weeks on end now, the main body of Chasewater seems fuller than ever I remember it being.

The fields of Home Farm at Sandhills were emerald green, and deer loafed at Brownhills West and Clayhanger.

A day that reminded me what spring was all about.

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