Middleton Pool (Wednesday 10th June 2015)

It was back to Warwickshire again after the previous week's Leamington Spa visit. This time it was to meet up with my brother for our annual visit to Kingsbury Water Park in memory of our parents.

We met at Middleton Lakes RSPB and had lunch as usual at the Dog and Doublet nearby in Bodymoor Heath. This year we met in June so had warmer weather and lighter evenings to enjoy. We walked up the towpath of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal and through the Kingsbury Water Park, seeing greylag geese, swans, Canada geese and goslings, nesting black headed gulls and great crested grebes with chicks on one grebe's back, spent time at the parents' bench and continued to the Middleton Lakes on both sides of the canal via the towpath, where we photographed a marsh orchid, and a footbridge.

After coffee and ice-cream beside the canal enjoying the view, back at the Dog and Doublet, my brother headed back for Dorset and I went on to explore Middleton Hall nearby, whose ongoing restoration was a feature of a recent edition of Countryfile. It includes a large 16th Century lake known as Middleton Pool that has SSSI status. I was pleased to find a pair of swans with four cygnets at the lake's edge, not far from where this motionless angler was enjoying the serenity.

I ended the day's activities by visiting my cousin Kate and her husband in Little Aston, not far from where my brother and I grew up, and drove back while it was still light via Henley-in-Arden, Stratford-upon-Avon and the Fosse Way. En route I saw a fox and, as night began to fall, a fallow deer crossed a lane in front of me leading a small fawn.

L.
20.6.2015 (1622 hr)

Blip #1598 (#1848 including archived blips)
Consecutive Blip #000
Day #1904
LOTD #832 (#953 including archived blips)

A Visit To Kingsbury and Middleton, 10 June 2015 (Flickr album)

Bodymoor Heath series
Family Business series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Nils Frahm - Says (2014)


One year ago:
The Old Forge