Meriden Park, Solihull.

Nice visit to Meriden Park in Solihull today, saying that though it was mostly nice as the day mostly consisted of the three R's, Ragwort, Rabbits and rubbish !

How locations such as this get a Green Flag award is completely beyond me as sites such as this and Ward End Park are always in a terrible state, you could see some of the shopping trolleys and litter had been in the water for months which is completely unacceptable when they are supposed to be a much needed haven for wildlife in inner city Birmingham, it certainly didn't help seeing two workmen in a van drinking tea in the car park form at least 8 to 8:30am, I shall spare you seeing the many photos I took as they are too depressing.

Anyway enough of the negative, what about the other two R's I hear you ask, well I've never seen so many Rabbits at any location before let alone this one, maybe it's because I was the only person around where they congregate but there were at least forty present, darting in different directions whenever I appeared, but even that number was dwarfed by the shear amount of Ragwort with hundreds of plants present along the river and the wooded area and of course they were full of very hungry Cinnabar Moth Caterpillars which are always great to see, also seen as you can see was a Five-Spot Burnett which was feeding on Field Scabious, this is the only location I've ever seen them so let's hope for the sake of them, the Rabbits and the wildlife in general that the land is never built upon like has scandalously happened on the land on the other side of the river, especially as along that stretch of river I always see Grey Heron and Little Egret.

Birds seen today were, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long Tailed Tit, House Sparrow, Goldfinch, Robin, Dunnock, Wren, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Blackbird, Woodpigeon, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Coot, Mallard, Canada Goose and a hybrid Greylag/Domestic Goose.

Then when I got home there were approximately thirty of this years juvenile House Sparrow in the back garden stripping the feeders of the seed and double numbers of juvenile Blue and Great Tit in the tree eating anything they could get near, choices for them include, black sunflowers, sunflower hearts, fat balls, home made suet and peanuts, great to see so many young birds choosing to come to my garden to feed.