Canal to KP

I managed to head out for a bit of a walk this afternoon after a GP Surgery appointment, and I decided I'd head up to the northern stretch of Aylestone Meadows within my 5MR. One thing I realised quite a while ago is that I should have made an effort to sort out some sort of route-tracking app. on my phone that would trace my steps and calc. the distances this year during my square and 5MR walks. I remember this every time I'm out, when it's too late to bother, and I guess there's not much point starting now. Today's walk was only c2.5miles in any case.

Here's an aerial map showing the route:

The red dot is the starting point at the car park; I followed the River Soar/Grand Union Canal along the cyan dots up to the King Power stadium; retraced my steps to the green dots following the River Biam and a boardwalk pathway, then back to the car park along the yellow dots.

I had my bins and camera, and set out in what were mainly bright and sunny conditions albeit still very cold. By the time I turned my back on the KP and headed back it was clouding over, and by the time I was on the yellow dots it had just started snowing again. We've had snow flurries every day since Sunday night, albeit mainly light.

The first stretch followed the tow path along the converged River Soar/Grand Union Canal. As you'd expect from an inner-city waterway, there are more graffiti-laden buildings, bridges and locks than scenic views ....

The melt evident on this bridge may be short-lived given the forecast -5C tonight!

Before long the glorious vista that is the KP came into view opposite Freemens Meadow Lock and the weir.

Up until this point, the bird interest was limited to say the least. Nothing but the odd Mallard, Moorhen and Mute Swan along the canal, and no sniff of a dashing iridescent blue streak. But, just whilst I was fannying about between phone and camera, a Raven was briefly in view soaring over the KP, the first new 5MR bird of the day. A quick scan on the water below the weir revealed another couple of yearticks, 15 Teal and 5 Little Grebes - albeit requiring full zoom on the camera.

A fourth year tick was a bit nearer, though perhaps less photogenic in the great scheme of things ....

I was a little bemused at the antics of one of the Moorhens, which was hopping along a row of large orange buoys that act as some sort of barrier in front of the weir - a bit like that shite TV programme Ninja Warrior. It only stopped hopping when it got to what must have been a particularly appealing pile of gull shite to peck at ....

I also felt obliged to point the camera at these majestic beasts, clearly a cold-weather movement from the fields of East Anglia ....

The walk back was a little precarious in places, as the rivers had clearly flooded big sections of the meadows previously, but there is a long stretch of boardwalk that made for better walking once on it. The scenery was better on this route, but with the cloud cover increasing and snow starting to fall there was not much chance of adding anything else new.

When I got back to the car park, one of the clumps of Mistletoe (actually not that common in Leics. but there is a fair bit here) showed expected movement.

During the time I've been constructing this image-heavy post, the delivery man has brought the TG-6 I ordered on Monday. I've got plenty of time to not read the manual (I've never read any camera manual), plug it in and see what's what before I'll have a chance to poke it in front of some small invert or other.

Tonight though, fittingly given the walk today, I'll be watching LCFC (hopefully) making their way to the FA Cup quarter finals. I can't believe that it is almost a year since I last sat in my seat at the KP (Man City, 22/02/2020). I did not go to the last home game where fans were present, Aston Villa on 09/03/2020 - it was a Monday night, I'd been busy and the writing was on the wall about impending closures and lockdowns - I just didn't fancy it and watched at home. Since then I've seen more LCFC games on TV than would normally be feasible as every game home and away has been televised. Whilst I want my team to succeed, in a weird way I will be massively disappointed if we were to win the FA Cup (the only top level domestic trophy LCFC have never won) in a season when no fans can experience and enjoy the spectacle.

The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts

They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts

They never drank water but whiskey by pints

And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights

The 3 'F's [Frost, Forgotten, Fascists]

This morning I had a couple of medical appointments, with the first being early at the local GP surgery. It took a good few minutes to get the car cleared of a decent overnight frost. Afterwards, I opted to head home via the back way and grab a couple of frosty shots in the square ..

As it happened, I need not of bothered as the sub-zero temperature, frost and fog lingered fully through the day. The garden feeders were busy throughout the day, but not with anything new or unexpected.

The Goldfinches create a lot of spillage and mess ...

The Squirrels tidy up the mess. And then bury it in plant pots.

By the time I'd cleared my metaphoric desk and could think about having a walk out, it was already late afternoon but the conditions were not really conducive to anything detailed.

Overnight frost in the late afternoon

I had thought about grabbing some photos and samples of various mosses, but given that everything was liberally frosted over I didn't bother with that. Instead I got properly togged up to keep warm, and just headed out for a walk with my bins.

The fields have hosted a decent-sized loose flock of Fieldfare and Redwing over the last week and they remained resolutely hopping about in the white grass. I did hear a couple of Fieldfare today over the embankment by my house, but overall both of these are garden rarities (aside from nocturnal flyover migrating Redwings). The only addition to the square list today though was a Meadow Pipit calling as it flew over my head - still waiting for the usual Skylarks to do the same.

I headed back up the lane at around the same time as yesterday, albeit after a much shorter duration out. The following shots were taken almost exactly 24hours apart. I always look at this structure and the scrubby area around it and expect to see a Little Owl - but as yet I never have. This is well within the square, but sadly not accessible without trespassing.

This is not a greyscale photo ...

Whilst grabbing Squirrel and Goldfinch shots off of my SD card, I remembered that I had some other shots on there that I never got around to sharing. They're from Watermead CP South on 27/12/2020 - but got forgotten about in the aftermath of that hybrid Glaucous x Herring Gull.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Herring Gull

Black-headed Gull

Mallard

Coot

Canada Goose

Meanwhile, in much more serious matters, the orange fuckwit over the pond mobilised his far-right militia in yet another outlandish attempt to delay/overturn the  Presidential vote. The chaotic scenes - and deaths - that followed have to be owned by him, and yet he continues to deflect and down-play what happened. He is so far detached from democracy it is unreal, and his apologists and defenders are no better. And it will happen here too if more people don't wake up to the insidious creep of fascism. Just be thankful that our lobotomised Neanderthals are not legally armed like theirs.

This track is 40 years old. And sadly this is still relevant.

Have you heard it on the news?

About this fascist groove thang?

Evil men with racist views

Spreading all across the land

Don't just sit there on your ass

Unlock that funky chain-dance

Brothers, sisters shoot your best

We don't need this fascist groove thang

I've scored with a cracking young Finnish bird ........

Careful scrutiny of a series of photos confirmed the detail ...

Helsinki - Finland ST255.461

I've submitted the record and await the ringing data and details. This bird was knocking about at Watermead CP South late yesterday afternoon, along with this one ..

AEH1 - Germany, details awaited

and two previously seen birds still hanging around ...

VH85 - Denmark

V028 - Denmark

All three of these were still around later this afternoon when I returned for more staring at gulls legs. Dave Gray and Brian Moore were already engaged in the same pursuit, and we picked up a first-winter individual that we think has been seen previously by John Hague but as yet no one has managed to secure the full detail. It's a Lithuanian bird, and detail gathered so far is that the ring code starts HA and ends 135.

HA?135 - Lithuania

Much less enigmatic was this heap ...

Canada Goose 47N - from the distant lands of Nottingham ..

A couple of other things that caught my eye ...

A brute of a 2nd winter Lesser Black-backed Gull

The most shagged-out looking Crow imaginable - looks like it's pleading to be euthanised

Pochard

Nipped out to Groby Pool at lunch time. Nothing much doing there, although I picked up Shoveler for the year. One duck I seem to have struggled to point the camera at with any success is Pochard. They always seem to but just a bit further out than anything else, and also drift even further out once they notice the camera pointing at them. Today I managed some shots - certainly not frame-fillers but they cropped down to something passable.

The Gadwall on the other hand were never close enough, or in nice looking water ....

Whilst the Canadas were just too close, but anything looks nice in the right light ....