Geoff from the Smestow Valley Birders saw a heron hunting the ducklings featured in the post above, though it didn’t catch any.
But the mother seems to have decided that a retreat was in order. The next day she was with all nine, hyperactive as ever. Now they were lunging after flies as they swam in the canal. The chicks were still to have flown. Perhaps they made a subterranean escape through the Graiseley Brook culvert.
While I was taking photos of the ducklings in the post above, a narrowboat came past. The birds continued swimming, seemingly unworried.
This was the only bird between the boat and me on the towpath. As the boat passed the surface of the water shimmered with reflections of the traditonal colour of its paintwork.
Large muddy bubble, with several smaller companions, which had formed naturally in a shallow puddle on a canal towpath during a rainy period.
Wild garlic (ramsom) in flower. Some stems have a whole bunch of flowers, though the scent is decidely garlicky.
Plants from this same patch are in an earlier post when the flower buds were just about to open.
Tall (often waist-high) narrow stemmed umbellifer. The individual flowers are delicate – one name is Queen Anne’s lace. Often grows in patches, so the flowers form clouds of white beside roads or paths, as here where the Smestow Valley Railway Walk passes through Finchfield.
View down over Great Malvern from higher up the hills on a winter morning, looking towards Bredon Hill. Low cloud filled the whole of the Severn valley.
The almost monochrome effect is due to the lighting conditions on the day, and has not been enhanced by the way the picture has been processed.