SATURDAY 9th FEBRUARY 2013.

DUNSTALL PARK
Calm, steady light rain, dull, cold,  11.00 to 12.20am.

FEET FIRST AT THE RACECOURSE FIGHT CLUB

A damp day at Dunstall, drainage ditches flowing, windsock limp, grass sodden, so just walking in the rain is the only option.  Few birds about, nothing flying, c.125 Canada Geese grazing near the track, a few Crow and Jackdaw foraging, and inside the lake fence, all is quiet.  Two Mallard pairs are feeding, a pair of Gadwall, seen daily now for some weeks, are asleep on the bank overlooking the water, two male Shoveler up-end in the shallows, and three Teal pairs are resting along the stone base of the island.  A closer check reveals at least 10 Snipe, running between the Teal to preen and wash at the water's edge, taking advantage of the dull conditions to scurry back and fore from the dead vegetation in which they spend most of their day beautifully camouflaged.  Grazing along the base of the fence with the ducks and corvids are eight Coot, more confidant now and growing in numbers as the breeding season approaches.  A pair were the great nesting survivors here during the drought and floods of the last two summers, and with vegetation now covering a greater area of the lake fringes than ever before, others have arrived to take advantage of ideal feeding and breeding habitat.  A check through c.130 washing and preening Black-headed Gull produces nothing unusual, the flock growing suddenly as birds seem to fall from the sky like snow, many more settling down on the central grass expanse of the racecourse, or proceeding high south westwards.  Peace, gentle rain, and quiet. Then, suddenly, everything kicks off, sqeaks, yelps, mini-explosions of sound, they're at it, stroppy, querulous, irritable, aggressive, it's a Coot confrontation, someone has swum over the line, someone must be put in their place.  Two pairs are squaring up, heads angled downwards, tails up, black wedge shapes circling each other like dark ships of war, another two join in, and from across the lake others are arrowing in, determined to join the action. It's serious now, the defending pair and their opponants lying back and flailing at each other with their legs, thrashing the water like demented paddle steamers.  No feathers fly, and it's always hard to tell if physical damge is done, but it seems the message has got home, for the main protagonists eventually break away and move off gradually, each returning to their patch of the lake, the fringe birds too are swimming off, move on now, there's nothing to see.  All is quiet again, the Teal  feed among the beds of  grass, the Snipe are invisible once more, and the gulls have flown.  The Gadwall?  They slept through the lot . . .       

(NB  Dunstall Park is a commercial site, access is strictly controlled).

BLACKCAP ALERT

There may or may not be wintering fairies at the bottom of your garden, but the British Trust for Ornitholoy has been trying to find out if there are any Blackcaps.  Breeding birds of this species leave the Smestow Valley in late summer and autumn for Spain and Africa, and don't return until the spring.  However, more and more of these attractive warblers are leaving the Continent in autumn and spending their winters in the UK, and the BTO has been trying to find out how many are involved, what they eat, whether there are more females than males etc. etc.  Officially the last reports should have been submitted last Friday (8th February), but you could always try your luck at www.BTO.org.

It might be just too late for submssions to the BTO, but you can forward your Smestow Valley wintering Blackcap records to this blog site at the e-mail address on the main page (photographic evidence may be required for fairies).