David

This coot was at home at the northern end of the Stourbridge canal, not far from where the canal peters out.

A six hundred yard stretch of the Staffs & Worcs canal passes through a cutting quarried out of the hard Bromsgrove (Keuper) sandstone. To minimise the work, the cut is only wide enough for a single boat, except at a couple of passing places.

The higher cut on the bank opposite the towpath shows a distinct layering in the types of vegetation which manage to cling on to the small cliff face the cut has created.

The Shropshire Union canal has its southern end at Autherley Junction, where it meets the earlier Staffs & Worcs canal. The owners of the Staffs & Worcs opposed the new canal as liable to drain the water from their summit level. Hence this lock being built, even though the water level is the same in the pounds on either side of the lock.

Beyond the lock the brightly-coloured narrowboats are some of the fleet of Napton narrowboats.

The tollhouse of the Shropshire Union, with attached cottage, seen from across the same lock.

These lupins were growing wild in a grassy field between the Birmingham canal and Oxley Sidings.

Although it was the very start of June, the development of some of the seed-pods was already well advanced.

View down the flight of locks at Delph, taken from the road bridge at Mill Street, up the hill from the Merry Hill Centre.

A duck had just landed in the top pool, and immediately began to swim away from the centre of the ripples created by its landing.

This honeysuckle was so abundant that it looked like it formed a bush itself.

The elaborate flowers perhaps point to it being an escaped cultivated type, but it was some distance from any garden.