It's a car boot salute as the grey arrow
from Africa drops in on our valley . . . 

Aldersley/Oxley

Tuesday 14th May, westerly breeze, broken cloud, sunny spells, rain later,  09.30 to 10.15.

We're halfway through May, and the northern end of the valley's all but silent when it should still be bathed in birdsong.  Residents such as Greenfinch,  Song Thrush, Goldfinch, Robin, Wren and others are doing their best, but for migrants it's been the quietest spring locally in nearly a quarter of a century.  Whitethroat numbers are way down on recent years, and the few singing Chiffchaff and Blackcap present are are quietening now as pairs begin to nest.  On the same date in 2007 no less than eight different kinds of warbler were heard singing here and on the edges of Dunstall Park just across the canal.  So far this year only half that number of species have been recorded, other migrants including wagtails, chats and thrushes have not shown, and the Smestow Valley's  "rarities fortnight" at the end of April and beginning of May was a non-event.  This sad state of affairs could be down to a combination of a calamitous breeding summer last year and adverse weather affecting migration this spring, and some experts are now forecasting a 50 per cent drop in bird numbers across the UK in 2013.  Whatever the reason, it means visits to places like Aldersley/Oxley with ideal warbler habitats have been made in hope rather than expectation.  So, after half an hour's looking and listening across the sloped grass, it's a reluctant retreat along the Birmingham Canal towpath up towards the Stafford Road and under the blue-brick arches.  Cross over, fleece off, lift the car boot, when for some reason I look up, and over Jones Road and The Downs there's an unmistakable shape against the sky, sharp-winged, lightweight and angular, holding against the breeze, floating lower and hanging before gently settling on a metal rail running along the edge of the railway viaduct parapet.  The small head turns to look downward, white-cheeked with a smudged black moustache, slate-grey backed, yellow-legged and sharp-eyed, its short tail shifting and reddish undertail feathers ruffled as it balances against the updraught, our first Eurasian Hobby for the year.  The jizz is "small Peregrine", but without the menace, without the muscular power, almost gentle by comparison, but arrow sharp, incredibly quick, a bird that can catch a Swift on the wing.  Within a minute or so a resident Crow takes an interest in the visitor, which drops off the parapet and accelerates away to disappear over the racecourse.  Early May is a good date locally to catch this migratory falcon on its return from southern Africa, and this bird may well have been on its way to a breeding site elsewhere in the West Midlands or further north.  Hirundine nest sites along the edge of the Wolverhampton conurbation attract hunting birds during mid and late summer, and they have been seen regularly in recent years checking out the House Martin colony on the Farndale housing estate next to Dunstall Park (I recall watching one on a late-summer afternoon some years ago hawking in a flying-ant swarm over Wightwick canal lock, flashing and twisting amidst a flock of Black-headed Gulls before powering away towards the city).  Yesterday was only the second time I had seen one actually perched in the valley.  Suddenly, a dull day seemed brighter.