Babies in the Bulrushes

In mid July, Edith talked about various water plants. Over the last month I've particularly noticed the growing catkins of Bulrushes (also called reedmace).

Tufted ducks and bulrushes, July 20th

Once again, I visited the pond at Trinity Park and watched the waterfowl. The bulrushes make a fine hiding place for baby birds. This time, I could hear rustlings as young ducks and coots (I think) moved around the reedbed.  On the pond itself I saw:

• Two families of Tufted Ducks, each headed by a lone female. The young a somewhat bigger than he last time I saw them but still fuzzy and babyish. The numbers are reduced - there was one family with 6 babies and one with four.  The babies keep bobbing down in the water and up again.
• Two adult Moorhens and one youngster.
• One adult Mallard.
• One adult Coot.

Moses in the 'Bulrushes'.

I'd better get this out of the way now. In my head, I always call them Bulrushes although I'm told that they are really Reedmace (Typha latifolia). Many people say that the confusion is down to the picture above. When I attended Sunday School, nearly half-a-century ago, we read from an illustrated book of bible stories. Looking at the Moses in the Bullrushes picture reminds me of childhood Sunday mornings. We gathered round trestle tables in the 1950's built Christ Church, Hayes. Middlesex. We read stories, drew pictures and did other church-related things. One of the stories we read was about Pharaoh's daughter finding Moses in the Nile. The King James version of the bible says:

And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.

It goes on to explain that Moses' mother managed to keep him hidden until he was 3 months old.

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink.
...
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it.

According to F. Nigel Hepper's "Planting A Bible Garden", The "Flags" could have been sweet flag (Acorus calamus). So, after all this fuss about names, it was a completely different plant. Returning from the banks of the Nile in ancient Egypt to a pond in Birmingham ...

Developing catkin, June 29th.

I had never thought about the way that the Bulrush catkins grow. They were just there - like fat, brown cigars on the end of a stalk, much like the ones I saw when I first started this blog in January. Since the beginning of the year, the neat catkins have become shaggier to the point that I could see birds collecting the fluff for their nests. At the end of June, I noticed young catkins forming. They were low enough to look down on and the golden spike was just a sign of things to come.  Now, a month later, they have their adult shape but are still a golden colour, ready to ripen into those handsome dark cigars.

Pond life and Bee Orchids

I've been making regular visits to the Trinity Park pond as part of the Wildlife Trusts' #30DaysWild challenge. On the 19th of May, 2016 I visited the pond and saw "3 black fuzzy Moorhen chicks clambering and tumbling around in the reeds".  Nearly a month later, I returned to see how the family were getting on. This apparently predictable area was to give me a few surprises.  First - as I approached the pond, I saw a small mammal, a vole or a mouse, run into the vegetation near the pond.


Moorhen and young.

Almost a month after I last saw them the moorhen family were doing well. I saw two of the young birds with a parent, which was carefully ushering them round the edge of the pond. The youngsters were larger and now soft-looking rather than fluffy. I spent some time sketching the scene, which was almost absurdly "chocolate box" with white water lilies in the foreground.

Female Mallard and ducklings.

While I was sketching the Moorhens, I also saw:

• two Coots
• a second adult Moorhen
• four male Tufted Ducks, two of which had rather grubby looking white markings and was being chased by a more dominant male, whose white patches were clear and bright
• a female Tufted Duck, keeping company with one of the males with clear white patches
• a female Mallard with 3 well-grown ducklings.
• two male Mallards.

Reedbed, where Blue Tits and Reed Buntings found foot and nesting material.

The water birds often hid in the feet of the reeds. While I was watching them I noticed small birds going to-and-from the shaggy reed mace (also called bullrush) catkins.  A Blue Tit was digging deep into the catkins, maybe searching for insects.  I managed to get a good look at a small brown bird gathering nesting material. I think it is a female reed bunting. 

Blue Tit at the mouth of its unusual nest.

I was baffled when, walking past the office building near the pond, I heard a lot of excited twittering. I looked up and around but there were no birds nearby. Then a bird shot out of a slot between bricks immediately above the carpark. In a tiny gap in this hard and hostile-looking surface, a Blue Tit was bringing up its family.

Bee orchids on vacant plot.

In early July, Edith wrote that:

"Miss F. gave me some Bee Orchids this afternoon, which she had gathered growing wild in Berkshire."

I've found Bee Orchids on the Trinity Park business park, which is only a few miles from Edith's home. There are some on a rough piece of grass by the bridge that cross the railway to the NEC, on the waste ground that I explored in my previous post and by the pond where the moorhens live. 

Bee orchid near the NEC bridge.

On my way from the office to the station, visitors to that week's Gardeners World Live show were amused to see me scrambling round taking photos of these little flowers. One lady, whose fondness for orchids was evident from her purchases was pleased to see someone else taking an interest in them, and pointed out some that I had missed.

A postscript - an article in the Birmingham mail tells us that the Bullring's last traditional flower-seller, Kate Kelly,  has died aged 89. She had worked there for 47 years alongside her two sisters.  The article says:

The well-known siblings came from a dynasty of traders who first pitched up to sell blooms at the famous marketplace more than 150 years ago.

I wonder if Edith ever shopped in the Bullring because, if so, she would have seen these flower sellers.

Horse-Chestnut Trees are a mass of white blossom

In her entry for May the 16th, 1906, Edith noted that:

"Some of the Horse-Chestnut trees are a mass of white blossom". 

Horse-chestnut flowers, May 15th - in the evening sun.

Horse-chestnut leaves, May 15th.

110 years later, I am staying in the Arden Hotel, which is surrounded by trees and bushes including both red and white Horse-Chestnut trees. Their scent drifts over me as I examine the strange, complicated blooms. In her diary for this time, Edith painted many tree flowers and I've paid special attention to them in this post.

Hawthorn, May 15th - late moring.

Pine flowers, May 15th.

Earlier, as I walked to work from the station, I found a variety of tree flowers including great swags of May (Hawthorn) and the odd but attractive flowers of Pine.

Male (brown) and female (green) Birch Catkins, May 19th.

Later the same day, as I was looking at the trees near the hotel, 7 House Martins flew overhead. In the car park, I found birches with catkins and briefly played hide-and-seek with vivid green but camera shy Polydrusus Weevils.

Crab apple blossom, May 15th.

Clouds of Crab Apple blossom floated above the car park as the setting sun made their delicate white petals glow.

Young Ash leaves and tiny 'aeroplane' seeds.

The last rays of sun tured the young leaves of an Ash tree into a fiery bouquet.  Once dark had fallen, I visited the Trinity Park pond. I was thrilled to detect a bat at approximately 47 and to catch brief glimpses of it hunting over the pond.

Coot, May 17th.

Over the next couple of days, I returned to the pond, snatching a few minutes from the working day to watch the birds. 

Watercolour and ink sketch of Moorhen chicks, May 19th.

One lunchtime, squeaking attracted my attention. I saw 3 black fuzzy Moorhen chicks clambering and tumbling around in the reeds. I watched, amused by their antics. Tiny wings flapped as absurdly huge feet grasped strands of old reed.  They were soon joined by their parents who seemed to tell them off for straying so far and making so much noise.

 Other birds that I saw at the pond included:

• 6 Mallards - 2 males, 1 female and her 3 ducklings
• 5 Tufted ducks - 3 males and 2 females
• 2 coots.

In such a controlled, urban, environment, you would imagine that it would be difficult for me to find the type of agricultural weeds that Edith describes in entry for the 26th of May:

"Walking through the fields today, I gathered the pretty little Yellow Heartsease, growing among the grass and clover ... "


Field pansy, May 19th.

In fact, I am more likely to find such them in the unregarded edges of a business park or supermarket car park than amongst a heavily cleaned and controlled modern field crop. I didn't find any Heartsease but I saw, for the first time in my life, a Field Pansy. It was growing on a bank of rubble between the road and a car park. The bank was smothered white Cress flowers, Scarlet Pimpernel and Forget-me-nots.

Cress and Scarlet Pimpernel, May 19th.

Not far from a Pond

I made it to Birmingham for the first time this year on the 12th of January. Looking at the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith’s entry for January 12 was “Saw several Moorhens feeding on a newly ploughed field not far from a pond.” It is a accompanied by a water colour of a moorhen beside a pond. So my mission is to find a moorhen or other water bird.

Before I do that I’d better tell you about where I am.  I’m working at Trinity Park, which is on the eastern edge of Birmingham. This business park is tucked into a corner between the Euston to Birmingham railway line and the A45, which is the Coventry Road.  Maps from the early 20th Century show that these trunk routes followed the same lines that they do today. Instead of Virgin Pendelinos and traffic roaring past office blocks and a hotel,  steam trains and horse-drawn vehicles would have been passing fields. Maybe there were motor vehicles too. Austin had just started manufacturing cars at Longbridge to the south-west of the city.

The early maps don’t show the  pond, which is in a shady corner between two office blocks and the now monstrous Bickenhill Lane.

The Trinity Park pond, just before dawn.

When I first visited the pond at 7:30 am, it was too dark to see any birds but the scene was pretty with the dark velvety heads (actually catkins) of bulrush and the lights of offices reflected in the black waters.  I packed in about an hour's work before coming back. I'm in luck. Before I even get to the pond I can see a coot dipping for its breakfast. As I watch it, a pair of ducks appear from the bulrushes.

Mallards (ducks) emerging from the bullrushes.

As I prowl round the edge of the pond to get a better view of the coot, I notice its mate, still clinging to its bed in the dried stems of water plants at the edge of the pond. It slowly clambers out just like someone dragging themselves out of their sleep after being woken after an early alarm.

Coots. Sorry - My watercolour skills are a bit rusty!

A moorhen explodes from its hiding place, flies clumsily across the pond and crashes into the bullrushes. It is time for me to get back to work, so I pack up my camera and go.