Frenemy

London has the Thames, Cardiff the Taff, Liverpool - Mersey, Newcastle - Tyne, Glasgow - Clyde. They roll off the tongue, the one identifying the other. The rivers of inland cities may be less well known, but the Irwell was vital for the early development of Manchester, as were the Don and the Sheaf in Sheffield. Cities developed on rivers because they provided transport, power (and waste disposal)

Strange then that Birmingham sits on a high point, close to a central England watershed, and its two 'rivers' are really little more than brooks. The city only really developed as an industrial centre when steam power was available, and when canals had been dug, to transport in coal and raw materials, and transport out finished goods

The 40km-long river Cole cuts through the eastern part of the city and eventually reaches the nearby town of Coleshill - you'll often hear the latter mentioned on motorway traffic reports, and the BBC have adopted the local pronunciation of 'Coze-ill'. The even-shorter River Rea (23km, and pronounced 'Ray', for some reason) flows much closer to the city centre, and provides a useful 'green lung', being fringed for some of its length by parks and paths. Neither river is navigable, nor particularly powerful, making Birmingham pretty unusual among large urban centres in Europe

This is taken on the banks of the Rea, illustrating that it may be industrially insignificant, but it's perfectly capable of bringing the invasive menace of Himalayan balsam into the heart of the city. I expect the human population will eventually come to regret its presence, as it ultimately smothers almost all other species, and contributes to the erosion of river banks but, for the time being, it looks pretty and many bees and other pollinators love it - it is a lowland equivalent to the late nectar flow provided by heather in uplands areas. I tried to get a picture of a bee with its back covered in pollen - a tell-tale that they are visiting balsam, which dumps pollen on them from above, but all the 'yellow-backs' were too fast for me