Spring Bank Holiday - Part One

After a windy and sometimes rainy week, followed by an amusing if blustery Saturday - I burnt both myself and the kebabs on the Barbecue, while Jeeves was being entertained by David and Doreen, who were supposed to be at a wedding reception (D &D from NB Beaurepaire), we set of in convoy on the Sunday morning. Clean water tank full; black water tank empty; nice stable boat!

Cracking weather, no wind and plenty of sunshine. Plenty of boats too (of which more later). Heading off first and again remembering the TV aerial a split second before ramming Bridge 40 with it, we headed right into the North Oxford without banging into any boats on the way. D & D on Beaurepaire following shortly after - as can be seen in the image through a bridge hole.

We were now a convoy of three heading for the tunnel at Newbold; Gleemaiden leading (another three and we'd have a peal of boats - that's enough stupidity, Ed.). As we emerged at Newbold, an oncoming boat got just past us as we swerved to avoid him with moored boat on the starboard; he proceeded to enter the tunnel as I pointed out that there were two boats already in there.

'Two can pass.' he shouted back with a surly frown, and entered the tunnel mouth, disappearing out of sight as we rounded the sharp bend that greets your exit travelling south That wasn't the end of though, as the boat behind David was most upset by the slow speed that all this kerfuffle caused when David had to slow to tick over to pass the idiot. The boat behind kept blasting his horn at David! All this I heard later.

Our next adventure in the realm of ignorant boating was just past Newbold and and emerging from bridge 51 that Audrone spotted a boat meandering along about three or four feet from the towpath bank heading straight for us. What the . . was it doing? Audrone sounded the horn and slowly but surely it moved over enough to leave us room to pass port to port - but not before we scraped the bottom doing so! Jeeves was furious and gave vent to the steerer of the errant boat, whose compressed lips and averted stare said anything but sorry. We did get a good picture of what was taking their attention away from boat control - swans and cygnets.
With the sun beating down on the late Spring landscape, we journeyed on through the Warwickshire countryside and then through the seamier part of Rugby's industrial hinterland and a huge residential development turning hundreds of acres into a dustbowl on the south side of the bank past bridge 58. One; two; three; four and five bedroom apartments - all, claims the billboard, with canal-side views.

Once clear of the moorings and the eyesore on the starboard view, we cruised under (or nearly under) some overhanging trees. Our little visitor literally dropped in on us!

There was a flutter about my head, and Audrone jumped up from the taffrail. Then before you could say 'tiller', a little bird flapped down past my shoulder and landed heavily on the gunwale just about two feet fo'rard of my left foot.

The gunwale is an extremely narrow landing strip even for such a little bird. Well, Audrone came to the rescue and saved him/her from a watery death or being made into chop suey for the local carp or pike after passing through the prop.

The poor little thing wasn't going to go very far, because as far as we could tell he was only just a fledgeling. So inside he went to live temporarily in a surrogate nest (a hat which was more suited to a jackdaw than this one).

Meanwhile our attention was taken up with navigation and the Hillmorton locks which were coming up. So it was quited surprising to find that the little bird had found wings and sorted out for himself a spot among the hops in the dinette.

It wasn't before long though that it was evident that the little creature was tired and probably hungry. They must use up a lot of energy trying to fly and have such little body weight that for every effort there is a need for energy replenishment. This was going to be a difficult problem - we didn't know anything about what such a tiny little bird would like for elevenses.

Jeeves and I held a conference at the earliest convenience and came up with the idea that it could have a choice of water and odds and ends of finely chopped up stuff that we eat.

Then we hit upon the idea of feeding the little bird some tiny bits of 'Fat Ball' bird feeder that we use to feed the wild birds in a bird feeder. The bird proved equal to a feast of this (must praise Wyevale for this), and soon recovered energy enough to try out every perch available in the boat, accompanied by loud 'tweep' 'tweep' sounds. Also tame enough to be fed on a regular basis now.

After a quiet night, we were aroused the next day to more chirping and demand for food. Lots of flying around as well was reassuring us that this little bird was indeed much healthier and had plenty of energy. Then mid-morning I noticed that it was up and down the saloon window sill tweeting for all it was worth, looking through the window and hopping about. We heard the same tweeting coming from the hedgerow and realised that another was calling him.

So Audrone took him on her finger and released him - hopefully to friends that were waiting to show him around the Braunston hedgerows divide the cut from the fields on the southern side of the cut.