On Sunday I went along to the Leeds Liverpool Canal near Carnaud Metalbox looking for the Yorkshire Sharks but they weren’t there so I went for a walk along the canal to Buck Lane and then back along the river with a pint at Saltaire Brewery.
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Canal
I have been along this stretch of the canal a few times over the last month hoping to get more sightings of Chiffchaff, Willow Warblers and Blackcap. Though I can hear them I have not been very good at seeing them, except for the Chiffchaff; they are often visible but high up. I know they are small birds but when you see this one and compare it to the support wire it is perched on you realise how small.
I have posted pictures of Stockbridge Dampers in the past here but this is the first time I noticed that the weights on these along by the canal are not just solid blobs.
Another new thing for me was to notice the number of snails on the rocks at the bottom of the canal. I had seen snails before but this time noticed several areas where there were hundreds of them. Initially I thought they were pebbles but the spacing of them didn’t look random enough so I looked closer.
The Grey Heron was on my return to the canal after having walked back along the river.
River Aire
After getting to the swing bridge I went down to the Buck Lane footbridge over the river. Looking over the side of the bridge it was noticeable that the water level in the river is low, it is not often you get to see the bottom in the middle of the river. It looks clean too.
I have posted two sets of photos of shoals of small fish. The first ones, and the header image, were taken from Denso Marston Nature Reserve.
Around the pond in DMNR the numbers and variety of Damselflies is increasing. Large Reds ovipositing, Azure Blues, and Banded Demoiselles.
I guess throwing balls for your dogs when in a nature reserve distracts them from the birds but certainly does nothing to distract the birds from the dogs.
I have seen very few Deer this year, I have probably been too busy looking at other things. I have seen them a couple of times in the fields to the left when going up Hollins Hill, but today I saw on across the other side of the river.
I have heard of same sex relationships amongst birds and had not thought much about it. I don’t know why but I had assumed that the act of sex was not part of it, perhaps because of the way I thought birds do it and my, apparently, poor knowledge of bird anatomy and the positions of their various parts. I had wrongly assumed that they would not have body parts that could match up. The process with Mallards is a bit more prolonged than the simple, quick cloacal kiss of land birds, it looks as though it could easily lead to drowning, and here are male Mallards having sex.
The photos of the shoals of small fish were taken near the footbridge next to the rail bridge over the river opposite the end of Midland Road.
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If I have got the ID of anything wrong please let me know, I don’t consider myself an expert but I have write something. It is often a best guess and it would take up too much room to say It could be this, or it could be… or perhaps.
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