Category: David

I didn’t notice it arrive, but a second parakeet joined the female at the top of one of the West Park trees [yesterday’s post]. Whether the angle was better or more light was on it, but it was possible to see this one’s red “collar” on its neck feathers: it was a male. It almost immediately began courting the first arrival. He appeared to preen some of her head feathers, and did pluck some of the leaf buds from the tree, feeding them to her, repeating this several times.

We thought it was likely that they would begin mating. But we left them to it, thinking that would be more likely if they didn’t have an audience. Instead we walked around the lake and, as chance would have it, were in a position to see the cormorant catching and eating a fish [posts earlier this week].

This is yet another small inconspicuous weed with tiny white flowers. This one is a bittercress, possibly wavy bittercress Cardamine flexuosa.

Once again a lone parakeet high in a tree, hard to see clearly because of the branches below. It was a female, but this was only proved by later events. Occasionally preening, occasionally stretching to nibble at the tender leaf buds nearby, the bird seemed totally undisturbed as I cricked my neck directly underneath.

I’d been watching for about five minutes, and the bird must have been up there for longer, when things began to change.

To be continued …

Growing at the base of the same tree trunk as yesterday’s whitlowgrass (and many others by main roads round the city) another weed with even smaller leaves and even smaller white flowers. This one is Danish scurvy grass (Cochlearia danica), and wherever it grows, it is within inches of the road itself.

The plant is a halophile (salt lover). Until the 1960s, it only grew in Britain in a few coastal locations. But then human activity allowed it to spread. Lots of upgrades of main roads, including a spreading motorway network, at the same time as the introduction of more systematic gritting of icy main roads. The splash zone on the verge of those roads only needed a touch of soil to provide perfect growing conditions for the scurvy grass. The draughts in the wake of passing cars and lorries then provided a breeze to help spread the wind-bourn seeds.

A similar process had happened a century or so earlier, when the burgeoning railway network had aided Oxford ragwort to going from being an escapee from the city’s Botanical Gardens to an endemic.

The cormorant flapped its wings on and off for four minutes or so, then relaxed them and started scanning the water more keenly. Another minute or so scanning, then off it dived again. This time it came up without a trophy.

Back on the perch again, then diving again after only a brief pause. Once again, surfacing without prey. It swam around, diving a couple more times with the same result. As we left, it was still swimming in the same area.

An inconspicuous weed growing at the base of one of the roadside trees, its white feathers even smaller and less conspicuous. It was common whitlowgrass (Draba verna), presumably another of the plants once thought to have medicinal properties. Whitlows are painful infections of fingertips.

Now the cormorant has had a fish, it needs to dry its feathers. So it’s time to get back to standing out of the water, on the fallen bough again. Spread the wings out and flap them slowly to expose all the feathers to the breeze. Shuffle round to face a different direction. That airs the plumage more evenly, and lets the bird watch out for any signs of fresh fish. Soon the feathers will be dry enough, time for the hunt to resume.

To be continued …

Flowers and flower buds on a Japanese quince shrub. Getting in really close emphasises just how vivid the red of the scarlet petals is.

The cormorant which is sometimes visiting West Park lake, busy fishing.

It perches on a fallen bough, carefully watching the water for a fish it thinks it can catch. At the same time, it keeps a wary eye out to check that I am not a threat. But the focus is on scanning the water for a potential victim.

Prey spotted, and it’s off, under the water before I can catch it moving. Up it bobs again, a large fish grasped in its beak.

The neck twists, thrashing the fish, which is dropped in the water once or twice. Finally, the bird gets hold in what is possibly just the way it wants, and the fish is swallowed whole. It disappeared down a neck which looked narrow than it was.

Now the cormorant swam up and down a short stretch of water by the bough which had formed its perch.

To be continued …

Flower buds beginning to open on another garden camelia. This time it’s a bush with pink flowers.

Ring-necked parakeets have been established in Wolverhampton for some years now, nesting in the Tettenhall ridge / Smestow valley area. Nearer the city centre I’ve heard them quite often in West Park, glimpsed them there very occasionally, and sometimes seen them flying over the streets nearby.

A few years ago, a pair investigated a hole in the trunk of one of the trees on the island in West Park lake, and seemed to have decided to nest there. A few days later, a gale blew down the tree. Parakeet presence in the park reverted to often heard, rarely seen.

Early in February, a parakeet was once again investigating a hole in a tree; a tree which happened to have been a near neighbour of the fallen one. Since then, almost every time I’ve been to the park, there’s been one or more parakeets visible. Sometimes it’s just been brief glimpses of them flying off because they spotted me first. Usually, as here, they have been high in a tree and more than half-hidden by the lower branches.

A small puddle in the middle, and other drops of water left on the petals of this garden primrose.