Smew

Today the smew was on the Slurry Pool again. I was closer today, having walked around to the sluice but he was still as far as he could be. He decided not to come out of the bushes at all!
The feeders are attracting lots of people as well as birds. It's nice to see folks paying an interest. I think they are the most photographed birds in the midlands. Most people are being great and using the screens to hide behind so the birds aren't bothered. It is a lovely spot. I would like to see more people taking some food down with them though (and not taking it away with them when they leave!)

Muffins

As anyone who knows me, or that sees my facebook updates, will know, I am on a mission to get in shape. Three years of married bliss does nothing for the waistline and I had noticed a marked increase in the hip area leading to a ghastly attack of muffinitis ( -itis normally meaning inflammation but I think inflation might be more appropriate). My mission involves my version of dieting- cutting down in portion size of my healthy nutritious home cooked dinners in order that I can still munch on crisps and chocolate. It also involves making a complete fool of myself by leaping around the living room under the careful guidance of Wii Fit Plus. However, I have had some success and am now half a stone lighter since New Years Day, happier and livelier.
This morning I had a bit of a shock! I had just completed my regular 20minutes yoga/muscle program (muffin reduction scheme) when the Wii Fit Plus chose to give me a pearl of wisdom. It 'said'....."you've been sticking to the same routine for a while now; if you were a dog, you'd be the patient golden retriever type"....!!!
I was stunned on so many levels. Firstly; I'm pretty sure my Wii Fit Plus just called me a dog. Now dogs are very cute and lovely and all, but no matter, I still see that as a bit of a jibe. Second; if I was a dog, I'm much more likely to be a Jack Russell- sometimes snappy, very lovable but a little bit irritating. Thirdly, and most importantly; in what twisted and bizarre computer programmers mind do the words 'golden retriever' and 'patient' ever appear in the same sentence. Obviously the all seeing eyes of the Wii Fit Plus failed to recognise the golden retriever standing on my hair during my sit up (jack knife) reps in an attempt to get my attention. Did it not see the golden retriever trying to suffocate me last night because I refused to get off the sofa at the precise moment she wanted me to let her outside? Did it not hear her barking at me when I refused to let her have back the cuddly toy she stole from her nanny's house? Patient.....piffle.

Picture this;
You’re a snipe, it’s the end of a particularly harsh January. The night before last the temperatures plummeted and froze all the water in your marsh. Last night, frozen rain fell onto the ice leaving a thick blanket of frost. Food is very hard to come by. What is the last thing you need right now? For some human to go yomping through the middle of your marsh while his friends stand waiting and watching for you to fly into the air and use up the last little bit of energy you had. Great, you’re on their year list; they got to see you. I wonder if you’ll make it to next year so you can be on their list again?
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Wouldn’t it be great if there were breeding snipe on the North Marsh at Chasewater? What are the chances? Did I walk on by and say nothing to the perpetrators? Nope; I hope they are feeling very very guilty now and will maybe think twice next time. Either that or they will run away very fast when they next see a birder with a little golden retriever by her side.
What other news from Chasewater? The drake smew was on Jeffreys swag today. The birds being bunched together by the encroaching ice. Amongst them, a very pale, leucistic pochard. The feeding station was very busy; masses of bullfinches, at least two willow tits, reed buntings, a couple of crafty rats and a sneaky squirrel. Redpoll and siskins were around but never ventured down to feed. The spare tubs of food were completely empty. An outdoor meeting organised by the Chasewater Wildife Group revealed the level of dedication by the number of people that turned up.





The pollution in the brook is bad at the moment. The Environment Agency has promised again to look into it. This brook is currently one of the main feeds into the reservoir at the moment. You can smell the pollution (possibly diesel) at the boardwalk over fly pool. Oh what a happy day I’ve had :-)

Chasewater today

I've had a good walk at Chasewater this morning. I started out at the feeding station; it was very busy with lots of reed buntings and bullfinches in particular. I wasn't lucky enough to see the willow tits today. The feeders are being kept well stocked and this is obvious by the number of birds using it. I took loads of pictures. I think I need some more practice; I'm not very good at focusing nor exposure settings! One of the pictures is of the smew- you have to look very carefully for it, it was one of the most distant birds on the slurry pool today. The deer seemed to be everywhere. I admired them from a distance and Baileys sat by my side- she is just the best little dog.

The fish

I found out something about the masses (and there are said to be 100000!) of dead baby fish in the canal basin at Chasewater that kind of disturbed me. In my earlier post I said that I thought it was a ridiculous idea that the cormorants were to blame due to the fact there was a thick ice sheet over the whole reservoir. I now understand that these poor animals were in fact photographed way back in December and so had made their way down there long before the ice arrived. It could make more sense now that predatory pressure chased them and they sought refuge in the drain. The odd thing is there have always been the numbers of goosanders, cormorants and grebes and this is not an incident I have heard of before so what made the fish go where they did? Is it unusual for the sluice to be opened at this time of year?
What shocks and upsets me is that the fish were photographed gasping and struggling to get enough oxygen following their journey into the canal. I wonder if someone contacted the Environment Agency straight away- as soon as this was noticed? I just don't know. Whether this was or wasn't done, they are now all dead. Fish surveys done earlier in 2009 had revealed a healthy number of young fish along with 50000 adult fish (information from LDC's blog on the dam works). They are going to translocate the fish when the reservoir is to be drained. I can't imagine all of them will be brought back. What a massive blow to the fish population and subsequently to the grebes and other fish eating species- it will probably take years for Chasewater to get back to what it once was. As for the dead fish, they cannot be moved now due to the level of decomposition that has already taken place. I won't be going to look at them that's for certain.

Chasewater tonight

Chasewater looked so pretty tonight; and there were both glaucous and Iceland gulls in the roost!

Kingsbury

Taking advantage of the lovely winter morning weather yesterday, my dad and me decided to go for a stroll around Kingsbury. It has been a long while since I've been birdwatching there. There was nothing of note except a distant egret flying North West as viewed from the hide on Cliff Pool. As to whether it was a little egret or the great white egret that has been lurking in the Tame Valley I'm afraid I couldn't say (it was flying away from me and a long way off). We walked along the canal to look over Fishers Mill Pits at Middleton Lakes and the other pits viewed from the canal. En route I spied a couple of treecreepers, a green woodpecker and a great spotted woodpecker. There were plenty of ducks everywhere and we spotted a few snipe on the island near Cliff Pool. A lovely old couple were leaving grains for the robins around the Kingsbury reserve and I chatted with them for a while. It gave me the opportunity for a very cute robin pic.



News from Chasewater; according to some randomness in the local rag, fierce evil predatory cormorants flew over the lake and chased all the baby fish out of the lake down the drain and into the canal where over 50 thousand are currently lying dead on the canal bed. These cormorants must have been enormous to have been visible through the thick impenetrable opaque ice sheet that covered the lake at the time. I feel very sorry for the poor little shag who's image appeared on the front page (and would have been rather excited if he'd been at Chasewater). I suspect the Environment Agency spokesperson who made the comments is a fisherman in his spare time! Also of note was the Central News article that spread prophecy of doom and death predicted when the dam bursts it's banks- I wonder if the local police spotted the two scramble bikes on the shoreline being given a good wash in the lake?

The Good Gulls

You spend your whole winter waiting for a glaucous gull then two turn up at once. We had a call from our friend Paul to alert us to a 3cy glaucous at Stubbers in Walsall so we abandoned our yomp over Cuckoo Bank and rushed off. We arrived on site to see Paul pointing in the air and watched briefly as the bird drifted out of sight. To add insult to injury the rest of the gulls that were loafing on the ice decided to leave en masse. Hmmm. We were lucky however to receive a phone call later from Martyn to Paul telling us that the bird was now in a quarry just around the corner. Off we went again, arriving to hear there was not one but two in the quarry- a 2cy bird in addition to the 3rd. What a bonus. The next hour or so was spent watching them loafing on the steep quarry sides and doing what gulls like to do best- ferreting around in the rubbish tip at the bottom of the pit. Nice place for a Sunday afternoon outing, if you're a gull.





Usual 'can you tell what it is yet?' pictures from me. There should be some better ones on the Chasewater website and Martyns blog at some point. Thanks to the guys for the heads up today, great work :-)