30 Days Wild - Days 29 and 30 - Journey's End

This is the last blog of my 30 Days Wild Series.  My wildlife journey is coming to an end.

Monday, 29th June

This was a busy, busy day. I had planned to do a particular piece of work that needed a whole day's clear run. I had everything planned - but, as they say, if you want to make God laugh, make plans.  There was a crisis, not a huge one - but enough to get me and others scrambling round sorting things out for much of the morning. After all that, I just had to get outside to shed some of the stresses that had built up.

Me out in the sunshine, with wildflowers in my Uckfield garden.

As I listened to the buzzing bees and grasses swishing in the wind, I spotted a number of butterflies and wondered vaguely why I hadn't seen any in Birmingham. There's certainly no shortage of flowers for them to visit.

Tuesday, 30th June

Tuesday saw my last run up to Birmingham for a while. I met a few human and animal acquaintances on the way up including the grey wagtails that I first saw a couple of weeks back. This time they were dipping in the River, in sight of the station platform.

One of a pair of grey wagtails dipping in the Uck.

I took a few moments at lunch time to check out the pond by our office. The coot was still defending its patch and the tufted duck had 7 little fuzzy ducklings.  Over the past couple of weeks, the white water lilies and yellow monkey flowers had started to bloom.

Tufted duck and ducklings

After work, a colleague and I went exploring. We found another house martin nest at the front of the hotel. It must have been there a while because the fledglings had left the nest and were lined up on the edge of the roof. On the way to the station, there are still plenty of flowers at the roadside.

Roadside roses.

We decided to have a look round the NEC park, and crossed the Pendigo lake using the boardwalk.  We expected to find a few ducks and maybe a coot or moorhen. However, 30 Days Wild had saved one of its biggest surprises until last. I was looking up at the house martins prospecting round the upper floors of the unfinished Resort World Hotel. I don't suppose they had much luck, the walls look too smooth for them. Then a flash of white. An impossibly elegant tern was swooping over the water, occasionally dipping for food.

Look carefully on the right of the photo to see the tern.

We spent time watching the tern and then moved on, passing the Crown Plaza, which was set up for a rather grand function. Within a few yards of the tables with their fancy floral arrangements, simple ox-eye daisies drew my eye to the Hilton Metropole on the other side of the lake.

Ox-eye daisies in the fading light.

A pair of ducks kept pace as we drifted along the footpath. After a few minutes, we decided that the Arden's restaurant was calling us, and turned back. As we returned along the boardwalk, an untidy, almost primeval, flurry of feathers announced the arrival of the heron, which settled into its lakeside home.

Not far from the roadside roses we passed earlier, I saw my first Birmingham butterfly, a meadow brown, settling on wayside flowers after a busy day fluttering around. Like my 30 days wild it had reached the end of its journey but will set out on a new one soon.

30 Days Wild - Days 7 to 12 - Travelling

I'm continuing with 30 days wild. My first post was about me squeezing time out of a very busy week to see wildlife that had squeezed itself into our lives.  I'm juggling my time between Uckfield and Birmingham but my journey is nothing compared to that of some creatures, which travel enormous distances.



Sunday, June 7th

A week into 30 days wild, I finally some quality time in our garden. As I was trimming back the foliage threatening to overwhelm our windows I loved hearing the bees buzzing and the church bells ringing.

Tree bumblebee on ceanothus.

Many of the bees were tree bumblebees. BWARS tells us that these bees were first recorded in Britain in 2001. Since them they have travelled throughout Britain.

Monday, June 8th

I found a nest and attentive woodpigeon well camouflaged by the shadows of our robinia tree.

A homely woodpigeon with its nest hidden amongst exotic robinia flowers.

Tuesday, June 9th

The river Uck runs alongside our little station. Just before I got on the train, I enjoyed a serene moment watching the ducks.  I had a chat with a fellow commuter who had just been watching a pair of grey wagtails working their way along a ledge near the edge of the platform. We discussed the lack of insects this year and how some exotic ducks have joined forces with our local mallards.

Ducks on the Uck.

Most of the time, I was busy reading documents on my laptop but I was able to glance out of the window and enjoy nature as I travelled. As we pulled into Buxted, I spotted a herd of fallow deer. A carpet of wild flowers was an unexpected treat at Milton Keynes.

Carpet of wild flowers seen from train window at Milton Keynes.

Later, when I looked out of the window of my Birmingham hotel room, I was astounded to see house martins darting around almost at eye level. These little birds will have travelled from Africa and are nesting under the eves of the hotel.

Wednesday, June 10th

On Wednesday morning I got up early and dropped my laptop off in the office and settled down by a nearby pond to watch this little slice of nature wake up.

Just a few steps but a world away from the office.

The first birds I saw were a moorhen and two chicks. Then a coot, dabbling under the surface for its waterweed breakfast.

Rushes provide perfect cover for coots and other birds.

As a female tufted duck ventured across the pond a furious coot appeared out of nowhere. Maybe it was defending a nest?  As I returned to the office, a rabbit lolloped into the bushes.

Thursday, June 11th

On the way out of the Arden, I spotted one of the house martins zoom into a nest made from a thousand beakfulls of mud. I stacked my baggage by the kerb and watched them for a while. As passenger jets roared into the air behind them, about half a dozen of these African visitors seemed to dance in the air by the hotel.

Arrivals.



Departures.

 

Friday, June 12th

Today's wildlife moment was sad but gave me a chance to get close to something lovely. A blackbird had hit one of our windows and died. I was able to examine his subtly coloured plumage and vivid yellow beak. There was a perfect graduation from the tiny soft feathers on his back to the long flight feathers on the tips of his wings.


Blackbird wing.

Of course, my drawing doesn't do the blackbird justice but spending time trying to copy the shapes of the feathers gave me time to appreciate just how lovely this fallen angel was and how perfectly birds have evolved for flying.

So the last few days have been about appreciating how good wild creatures are at travelling. They may be tiny compared to our trains and jets but they are never stopped by a signal failure or lost baggage.