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Canal Wildlife


Captain Pegg

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What? You mean the deer can't read the signs? smile.png .

 

Each ramp is signed to warn boaters of the obstruction but because most of them over time have sunk below the water surface the deer don't know they are there which renders them pretty useless.

The ramps are just piles of rock submerged in the water so that the deer can clamber onto them and onto the bank.

 

Not so sure they have sunk!

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Questions popping up in my head in this mornings cruise....

Where do ducks go to die, never seen any floating?

Herons, never seen a pair only singles, do they just hook up for nookie then leave, like a nightclub pull?

I found a dead duck in a lock once. When I put the boat into reverseveral to top it got sucked into the prop and exploded. Messy and feathery,

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Questions popping up in my head in this mornings cruise....

 

Where do ducks go to die, never seen any floating?

 

Herons, never seen a pair only singles, do they just hook up for nookie then leave, like a nightclub pull?

Herons are solitary and territorial birds, but yes they do get together for nookie in a big group at a specific place. This is called a Heronry.

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The ramps are just piles of rock submerged in the water so that the deer can clamber onto them and onto the bank.

 

Not so sure they have sunk!

 

Yes they have!

 

The piles of stones are occasionally showing above the water (where the deer might see them) , but most of the piles have partially collapsed resulting in the top ones sinking under the water and therefore out of site.

 

Perhaps I should have worded it to say that the piles of stones had shrunk or collapsed? smile.png

 

Whatever the correct terminology, the current situation is useless, with most of them being hidden under the water it makes them far harder for deer to find them unless they happen to swim over them and feel that they are there.

Is this genuine or satire? If the former, remind me not to visit that part of the U.S.A.

 

Brilliant. You could detect that hosts were finding it so difficult pretending to take the caller seriously.

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Yes. We have more reds than greys, because until recently the Forestry Commission employed one of our neighbours as a 'squirrel woman' to trap the greys, but the funds were withdrawn and I suppose the alien greys will recover. They carry a disease to which they are immune but which kills reds.

Its a shame as the scheme was / is working very well at keeping the 2 appart. Edited by billybobbooth
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What was the bottom of canal like where the water was clear?

 

I used to think it was simply a lack of boats that caused this but the water was clear in August between Factory Junction and Tipton Green and there are lots of boat movements there. What I do notice is that where the water is clear the bottom is covered in greenery and that doesn't seem to be the norm when canals are drained. So is it a biological phenomenon and are the sections with clear water lined with a clay puddle?

 

I must admit I thought it was pretty much only sections on the Wolverhampton level that had clear water until you mentioned Perry Barr.

 

JP

Before the Lowland canals were reopened, the water was very clear and there was a lot of weed growth on the bottom of the canal, probably caused by the sunlight being able to get through. The canals were dredged and it took a few years of boat movements before the water got stirred up sufficiently to stop sun getting to the plants. During that period, visits to the weed hatch were very frequent :-)

 

haggis

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Herons are solitary and territorial birds, but yes they do get together for nookie in a big group at a specific place. This is called a Heronry.

... and right noisy beggars they are too when in the Heronry. Although not the only nesting technique heronries are often high up in mature trees. Something at first thought seems odd with their long legs and large wings. We have a group in the woods near us and in the summer they are very vocal.

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The landing stage at the bottom of our garden is protected by some old tyres. Often during the summer, a terrapin clambered up on to the top of a tyre (always the same tyre) to bask in the sunshine.

We also have eels locally. Apparently they are not as common as they used to be, but we do see them from time to time.

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Before the Lowland canals were reopened, the water was very clear and there was a lot of weed growth on the bottom of the canal, probably caused by the sunlight being able to get through. The canals were dredged and it took a few years of boat movements before the water got stirred up sufficiently to stop sun getting to the plants. During that period, visits to the weed hatch were very frequent :-)

 

haggis

I'm not sure boat movements is the whole answer. Parts of the Wolverhampton level are always clear and while not the busiest, the stretch from Oldbury to Tipton gets a reasonable amount of boats, certainly far more than the Huddersfield Narrow which is not at all clear. When I was first boating, I asked another boater about the Wolverhampton level and he said it was because the Chasewater Reservoir was being repaired and BW where pumping water up from flooded mineshafts to provide the water. I'm skeptical about this, but maybe others on here know more about it?

 

I imagine clear water is due to a combination of factors, but I still don't understand why, for example, the vms at BCLM stay so clear, there's loads of boat movements around there.

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Before the Lowland canals were reopened, the water was very clear and there was a lot of weed growth on the bottom of the canal, probably caused by the sunlight being able to get through. The canals were dredged and it took a few years of boat movements before the water got stirred up sufficiently to stop sun getting to the plants. During that period, visits to the weed hatch were very frequent :-)

 

haggis

I remember the arm down to Coventry being like that about 20 years ago, you could see not only the crap in the water but also the fish swimming about.

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Pedants corner. A heronry is actually a rookerie (No I don't know why either but I don't suppose it matters very much)

pedants' correction corner.

 

there is no such word as rookerie. tongue.png

 

 

 

......... fact is that a heronry is sometimes referred to as heron rookery.

Edited by Murflynn
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Pedants corner. A heronry is actually a rookerie (No I don't know why either but I don't suppose it matters very much)

not here its not http://www.rspb.org.uk/community/wildlife/f/13609/t/9449.aspx

 

7. Herons are sociable birds when nesting, invariably nesting in long-established heronries.

 

8. Most heronries are in trees, with the majority of nests at least 25m above the ground. However, reed-bed heronries are not unusual, and they will also nest on cliffs, bushes, sometimes even on buildings of bridges.

 

9. Heronries can reach a prodigious size: one at Great Snowden's Wood, near Brede in Sussex, contained around 400 nests in 1866.

 

10. The biggest heronry in Britain is currently at Northward Hill in Kent, an RSPB reserve. Numbers here have peaked at over 200 nests, but the current total is around 150.

 

11. It's not unusual for a single tree to hold as many as 10 nests.

 

12. The annual count of heronries is the British Trust for Ornithology's longest running survey. The first took place in 1928.

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The landing stage at the bottom of our garden is protected by some old tyres. Often during the summer, a terrapin clambered up on to the top of a tyre (always the same tyre) to bask in the sunshine.

We also have eels locally. Apparently they are not as common as they used to be, but we do see them from time to time.

There are some huge eels in our marina.

 

Seemingly the only thing I can catch when fishing!

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