Shard End Lake.

Early morning trip to Shard End Lake today. Birds spotted were Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Willow Warbler, Robin, Collared Dove, Dunnock, Starling, House Sparrow, Grey Heron, Moorhen and Tufted Duck. It was great to see Jays talking advantage of the late summery weather and flying to and from acorn trees for acorns to hoard for the winter. More photos (and other nonsense) on my Flickr.

Pype Hayes Park and Plantsbrook Nature Reserve.

First off today was a quick trip to Pype Hayes Park to see if the Cygnets are doing okay and unfortunately was greeted to a sight of one dead, upside down in the water, which is shame because as you can they're getting quite big now. Birds seen at Pype Hayes were Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Robin, Starling, Jay, Song Thrush, Grey Wagtail, Nuthatch, Mute Swan, Moorhen and Cygnet (4) The it was off to Plantsbrook to be greeted to a shopping trolley dumped in the first pool, which we shipped out of the water and took to the tip. Birds spotted were Blue Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Robin, Jay, Grey Wagtail, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Grey Heron, Moorhen, Tufted Duck and Great Crested Grebe. The rubbish in the last picture was left behind by a so called fisherman, pop bottles, cans, sandwich packets, tissues, disposable barbecues, gloves, fishing line etc... It looked a proper tip ! That was not including the four bags of crap picked up around the other pools. It makes you feel like not going sometimes but you can't let the underclasses win, can ya ? Especially when there's some great Funghi out there at the moment. More Funghi photos from today on my Flickr.

Salford Park, Aston.

Another walk around Salford Park and along the adjacent canal. Birds spotted were Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chiffchaff, Goldfinch, House Sparrow, Robin, Kestrel, Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail, Mute Swan and Cygnet (5). The Goldfinch was a flock of forty plus in amongst some eight foot high buddleia along the canal with a few House Sparrow in there in the mix as well. As you can see the Mute Swans and five Cygnets are still doing well.

Garden watch.

Woke up this morning, opened the curtains and was greeted to a sight of House Sparrows, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Long Tailed Tits and a Blackcap. There must have been at least forty House Sparrow, four each of Blue Tit and Great Tit, a flock of eight Long Tailed Tit, and a single male Blackcap on the fence which is notable because last year I had female Blackcap in the garden but I didn't see any males.

Babbs Mill Nature Reserve and Yorks Wood, Kingshurst.

Another trip to Kingshurst today where birds spotted were Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, House Sparrow, Song Thrush, Grey Wagtail, Mute Swan, Tufted Duck, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Great Crested Grebe, Grey Heron, Cormorant and Cygnet (5). I don't always pick up the litter (because you'd spend your time doing nothing else) anyway while I was in the Yorks Wood, I just had to pick up this plastic packaging, because there was a lot of it and as I doing so this frog popped out from underneath it and promptly hopped off into the wood, it was only about 2 inches long. The highlight of the day was being as it was a bit quiet on the bird front was finding the (as you can see in third picture) 'Fuligo Septica' which is a type of slime mould and is more commonly known as dog vomit slime mould obviously because of it's yellow bile coloured appearance.

Lady Bradford's, Castle Bromwich.

Another trip to Lady Bradford's down Castle Bromwich way. Birds spotted were Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Robin, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Jay and Song Thrush. The Jays were busy collecting acorns from various locations over the fields also in the graveyard of the church there were ten or more Song Thrush foraging for food (worms mainly) and flying around the trees in the kirk yard. I also heard the Pheasant but didn't actually see them. As you can see with Autumn just around the corner, the Funghi season will soon be in full swing, I'll be keeping 'em peeled for my favourite, the iconic 'Amanita Muscaria' more commonly known as the 'Fly Agaric'. Also if your interested check out what is now the second best thing on the internet, the Vinnyman Flickr stream  It will contain some crossover photos from this blog and any other random crap that I come across :)

Middleton Lakes.

Another early morning trip to Middleton Lakes where the highlights of the day was seeing a Hobby take a Greenfinch (it wasn't a highlight for me personally if you know what I mean) the Hobby came out of nowhere and darted into the feeding area where many Greenfinch, Tits and House Sparrow were feeding and took the Greenfinch almost in the blink of an eye, when the Hobby darted down at least 100 songbirds must have flew up in a panic, what a mad start to the day, other highlights was seeing 100 plus Lapwing in an adjacent freshly ploughed field along with many Starling, it was also nice to see an adult and two young Great Crested Grebe on the River Tame. Another great sight occurred just before we entered the lakes, when there was hundreds of Swallow and House Martin that were flying in the nearby fields. Birds spotted today were Hobby, Buzzard, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Chiffchaff, Wren, Swallow, House Martin, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Starling, House Sparrow, Collared Dove, Pied Wagtail, Little Egret, Lapwing, Gadwall, Great Crested Grebe, Tufted Duck, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Grey Heron, Cormorant, Herring Gull plus the following young, Cygnet (3) and Great Crested Grebe (2) It was nice to get a really good picture of a Butterfly (it was very good and let me lie down by it to get a photo) also in the same area there were plenty of seven spot Ladybirds and a Harlequin Ladybirds. Other wildlife seen today were Horse, Cow, Sheep, farmyard Ducks and Chickens. Also found the feather in the last picture of which is possibly from a Kestrel.

Lady Bradford's. Castle Bromwich.

Quick visit to Castle Bromwich today mainly to see if there was any fungus about. Birds spotted while over there were Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin, Chiffchaff, Jay and Song Thrush. The Tits were seen in a large flock of 50 plus, which were very noisy, I also saw a flock of 10 Song Thrush, which is something I don't see every day. While over there I also saw a Fox, which stared at me briefly then promptly ran off, thankfully away from the 'Collector Road' so hopefully it'll be safe. As you can see I saw some Funghi while I was out, which I always love to see. Here's another update on the stabbing incident at Hodge Hill.

Salford Park, Aston.

Had a walk along the canal and around Salford Park today, but unfortunately it was a total washout, it rained heavily the whole time I was there, even the fishermen and fisherwoman gave up and went home. For the record, birds spotted were, Swallow, Starling, Cormorant, Mute Swan and five large Cygnets. As if the weather wasn't bad enough it wasn't until on the journey home that I noticed I'd somehow changed the picture quality on my camera to 0.3 meg, don't know how that happened ? As least I did see a quality piece of Fungus while I was out, not sure what it was though. After yet another quiet day out, especially on the birdwatching front, we got delayed getting home by a couple of hours when an air ambulance had to land on the site of the old 'Clock Garage' to take someone to hospital who had apparently had their arm chopped off, just another uneventful day in inner city Birmingham, all good 'armless' fun as they say ;) Update from the Birmingham Mail on the incident by the 'Clock Garage'.