Tuesday 22nd January 2013

Walk from Dimmingsdale to Newbridge following Staffs & Worcs Canal and Smestow brook.

Cold, east wind, lying snow, high broken cloud clearing to watery sun, 10.30 to 13.10.

Thin ice on the canal at Dimmingsdale bridge, Sankeys pool and Pool Hall main lake are frozen over, towpath and bridleway slushy and treacherous, but, suddenly, through the clear air, it's spring     . . . .     the sound of a Great Spotted Woodpecker drumming in a waterside oak.  Pool Hall main lake is now mostly clear of ice, and birds have flown in, seven male and two female Shoveler doing their spin-feed routine, with 24 Coot, a male Gadwall, 62 Black-headed Gull and 43 Canada Goose, plus two Snow Goose hybrids.  Two Pied Wagtail and a couple of Meadow Pipit are foraging in vegetation by the dam when three Snipe suddenly fly up from the neighbouring field, two leaving low towards the canal, the other dropping to stand on the dam wall, its long bill angled downwards, the bird looking awkward and isolated.  As I close the bridleway gate a Robin flies to perch within a foor of my head, them dropping down to stand virtually touching my boot.  It's Polo mints or nothing, my friend, so I take my apologetic leave to walk between the barn conversions by Pool Hall house and look across root crop fields towards Perton Mill farm and the Bridgnorth Road.  The sheep grazing area has been extended, and winter thrushes and Starling feed near to and among the animals. Birds are flocking to these fields, and I have the sense that with the weather now lifting, something's going to happen.  Suddenly there's an explosion of Woodpigeon and Crows near the Smestow brook, the birds rocketing off in  all directions.  Through the mayhem I glimpse the shape I've been looking for, stiff-winged, compact, purposeful, already beyond them, a Peregrine slanting away towards Jenny Walkers Lane.  It must have come in low just south of Wightwick fields, but showed no interest in the foraging flocks, which after a few minutes settled back down to feed.  Later, a Little Grebe sits along on the canal just above Castlecroft bridge, and as I leave the towpath to walk down towards the Smestow, a Buzzard flaps heavily away to perch on a phone pole in the middle of Wightwick fields. All quiet along the brook, just a Grey Heron rising from the bank near Windmill Lane.  Eighteen Fieldfare fly south westwards over the fields, and later, as I reach the canalside fields just north of Wightwick Mill lock, a male Kestrel sits perched by the edge of the sand quarries.  Another Buzzard, an adult, goes low towards the pines hill, three Bullfinch fly towards the canal, and a few minutes later as I follow the towpath northwards from Compton bridge I find another two Little Grebe above the lock.  Two male Shoveler stay ahead of me on the water towards the Meccao Bridge, wary and unsure of this foreign location, but six Mallard and a couple of Moorhen show no such concern.  I make a ten- minutes detour down the middle of a frozen Compton barleyfield to view Tettenhall ridge, since if raptors and passage birds are to make an appearance, maybe now's the time.  Sure enough a male Sparrowhawk comes in low over the trees, rises, circles and is  immediately attacked by two Crows.  He doesn't leave, but leads the corvids through and round the trees, a territorial matter, important enough to be joined by (presumabley) his mate, a big female who turns the tables, chasing and stooping on the Crows up and down the side of the ridge.  I leave them to it and walk down to the exit of the Graiseley brook where a female Grey Wagtail feeds along some exposed mud.  Time's getting on, so it's back home along the old railway to find, unusually, a Mistle Thrush pair methodically and quietly preening in a tree at the bottom of the garden, with seven Long-tailed Tit clustered on a fatball feeder.  All in all, not a bad morning.