Wednesday 23rd January 2013

Walk from Newbridge to Aldersley along Staffs & Worcs canal, old railway and Smestow brook.
Cold, overnight snow, slight thaw, easterly wind, dull, clearing slightly, 11.30 to 13.00.

Still more snow, car covered again, so a somewhat extended walk to get the morning paper.  All quiet on the Old Bridge over the canal at Newbridge, a check of the brook produces nothing, and a walk along the newly surfaced towpath takes me past overhanging snow-laden bushes and trees which from time to time dump their loads, forcing frequent wiping of bins.  Newbridge wood is silent, but two immature Coot are still on the  canal, now further towards the Tettenhall Road.  There are a few Moorhen, but none of the harsh-weather water birds I'm hoping for.  A quick visual check as far as Oxley Moor Road produces a single Grey Heron on the towpath just beyond the railway viaducts.  So, it's back along the cut, to check the Smestow culvert exit by the racecourse, and then the brook itself.  Just below the Water Bridge on the canal a Little Grebe struggles to subdue and then consume what looks like a small Roach measuring at least a third of its own length (they shake their neck just after the fish slides out of sight, their whole body shaking and shuddering. No wonder).  There's nothing along the Aldersley stadium stretch of the brook, but peering over the low culvert wall as the brook bends sharp left I see a pair of Teal and a pair of Mallard, stiff and on full alert as they become aware of me.  I move forward for a better view, the ducks stay but a Snipe shoots up from just below the bridge and careers away between houses on Aldersley Road, banking back round to leave north eastwards.  It's all white and still along the old railway past the hawthorn wood, but just beyond Hordern Road a Nuthatch calls, and there's a sound I can't fix, a light chattering, twittering song, akin to but lower than the communal chunterings of Redwing and Starling, similar to but not tinkling enough for Goldfinch.  I search treetops near the Double Pennant offices, and the mystery is solved, a black-crowned and black-bibbed male Siskin producing a stream of notes, a song I've missed for the past couple of years as the birds start to come back through in late winter.  At least two females are feeding nearby in an alder.  It's lunchtime, so I cut short the walk, cross the canal over the old Courtaulds railway bridge by Hordern Road, and am soon back home, with paper, to catch the 12.58 weather forecast.  More snow on the way . . .