THURSDAY 14th MARCH 2013

Pool Hall to Newbridge, canal and Smestow brook via Wightwick and Compton.

Bright, cold, calm, dry, overnight frost, 10.30 - 13.00.

Blue sky, white birds, brown earth . . . 

The freezing wind has died, the sun is up and despite that deathly high-pressure calm there's a

chance something might just stir, after days of  bitter grey weather.  We're halfway through March, the month of movement, and migration has started.  Although our long-distance visitors are still at least a week away, resident birds are already singing, pairing up and defending nesting territories all along the valley and in the open countryside beyond.  The bridleway by Pool Hall is alternately dry-rutted and slushly as the sun penetrates the low canalside hedge.  Out on the dam lake a narrow ice-free tongue of water supports a pair of Great Crested Grebe preening and resting, close to their diminutive toy cousin, a fluffy summer-plumaged Little Grebe, bobbing close to the shore.  A pair of Tufted Duck float quietly, even the 14 or so Coot seem indolent, waiting for the thaw, too close together for the moment to be their aggressive selves.  A male Reed Bunting sings from a canalside hedge south of the lakes, and along the towpath from Mopps Farm Bridge the sound of Skylarks trickles from a bright sky.  A flock of c.30 Linnet swirl from a canalside tree, their thin notes contrasting with a male Yellowhammmer singing from the rough margins of root-crop fields now stripped by sheep.  The animals have gone, but the ground between the canal and the Smestow brook is black-dotted with hundreds of Jackdaw, Rook and Crow,  probing the soil that for weeks has been ice-bound and barred to them.  Suddenly they rise, raucous, a large brown shape glides in and scatters them, wing-tips raised, and settles, standing awkwardly, shuffling and turning.  The Buzzard is not in its element, the corvids seem to know this, closing in, there's danger, hop in and back, not too close, don't let it settle, and minutes later the interloper has had enough, rises and flaps lazily away, a black crowd escorting it.  The foragers have done the business and return to feeding.

High above them the sun lights up the underwing patterns of circling raptors, at first two, then three, then six, their mewing calls clear across the southern end of the valley, the birds funnelling upwards, drifting apart then coming together, floating in the late-morning thermals above Castlecroft and Radford Lane, each flight a statement of intent or union.  This is the March "meet" of the Smestow Valley resident Buzzards and of their neighbours, this time eventually nine, possibly more, birds taking advantage of a clear and calm day to re-establish their positions in the local raptor hierarchy.  Established pairs defend their territories as other birds try to establish new ones, mature adults resisting the challenge of younger interlopers, some of which will have been born locally.  Fifteen or so minutes later and they're starting to drift away, the resident pairs descending to circle over their nest areas, talon-dangling or display-flying in extravagent roller-coaster plunges, the others angling away towards the city or South Staffordshire.  Twenty years ago the sight of a Buzzard over the Smestow Valley was worth a phone call.  Now you can close your eyes and be in Wales as they perform above you.  This beautiful bird is the most commonly reported raptor locally.  How wonderful is that!!

Onwards towards Wightwick, and a pause for breath on Castlecroft canal bridge.  There's a flurry of movement beyond Pool Hall lane, birds rising just above the hedge line, then falling from sight.  This undulating wave is a flock of around 100 Black-headed Gulls, twisting and turning as they follow a tractor ploughing a long field just beyond the track, a traditional rural scene now enacted on the fringe of the city, the pristine white adult gulls fluttering, swirling, hovering and dipping, back-lit by the light as they drop on to the glistening folds of freshly-turned earth.  Then it's over, the gleaming blades lift and the machine grinds away down the lane, the birds settling for a final feed.  Surprisingly, at least six Buzzards fly away from the far edges of the field as the tractor departs.  Were they worm-hunting too?  Were they some of the birds performing above the area some 20 minutes previously? Who knows, but one thing's for sure.  It's lunchtime, and the the Great Bird Lull is nigh. 

Nothing much along the Smestow, just as quiet along the canal to Compton, and so to the barleyfield, where a group of school pupils are sitting by the old oak on the slopes of "sledge hill", on a birdwatching mission looking out towards Newbridge, Dunstall Park and, invisible today, Cannock Chase.  Their teacher tells me they've already seen a male Bullfinch, Woodpigeons, and other species, and we're in luck, for suddenly a male Sparrowhawk circles above us, joined by presumably its mate, and a couple of Stock Dove land on the barleyfield.  Dinner calls, so it's goodbye, and off down to the Meccano Bridge, to see a Mistle Thrush on the Compton Park playingfields, and two summer-plumaged Little Grebe on the canal.  Four Mallard fly in, a feet-first male landing slap bang on top of one of the grebes, which crash-dives to escape, emerging cautiously and closer to the bank.  Have these ducks no manners . . ?