Leg Up

Not quite sure why these cygnets all had one leg up resting above the water.

I took myself off for a walk using the local canal network to complete a loop of about 9 miles. Where we live is a few hundred yards from an old canal line, now filled in. I was able to use a path that runs alongside the line of the old canal to reach Sneyd Wharf, where the Wyrley and Essington and Walsall canals meet. 

I started down the Walsall Canal only to spot in the distance a fleeting movement of irridescant blue, repeated a few minutes later as I progressed. I kept my eyes out for more sightings but this was the extent of the kingfisher sighting, my first of the year. I soon reached another junction where the Walsall Canal split off from the next section of the Wyrley and Essington which I used to loop back up towards home. At one time I would have been able to follow another section to get within a few hundred yards of home, but the Lord Hayes Branch was abandoned many years ago.

It was very quiet along the towpaths, only seeing two or three people in all of the time I was walking.