A Dazzling Array of Talent.

Reed Bunting posing, originally uploaded by Steve_C.

As the FC United game against Kendal was called off yesterday due to a waterlogged pitch at Gigg Lane we all headed off to Pennington Flash for a bit of a walk and some birding.

It's a great place for The Kids as there a number of accessible hides, a small play area and a chip van, so it's possible to get them interested without seeming to hit them over the head.

The easiest and most 'spectacular' hide is The Bunting Hide, in front of which food is left out in Winter. This leads to a parade of some of the most beautiful birds we have out there - the Bullfinches in particular looked as if they just been into make-up to have their colours touched-up. There were also the usual sights - bright robins, greenfinches (there was a dead one on the floor of the hide which provoked some interest from My Young Ghouls), chaffinches, dunnocks, blackbirds and even a pair of mute swans which had made themselves at home in what can only be described as the small puddle underneath the tables.

It was all wonderful to see, but there was a feeling that I was shooting fish in a barrel. Not to the extent I've felt it at some nature reserves, but it still felt as if seeing birds there was not as satisfying as when I see them 'on the hoof' and in an urban setting. I think that a large part of the joy I get from seeing birds in Manchester or Salford is the knowledge of how run-down, dowdy and poisonous the areas had been in the past.

Six months ago I wrote, with breathless excitement, about seeing a Kingfisher shoot under Victoria Bridge adjacent to the site of the old Victoria Bus Station. On Friday, my perceptions heightened through the use of my Kingfishervision super-power, I leant over from the Salford-side, old tax office to my rear and looked down into the scrubbage which has grown on the bank down there, inaccessible to all. From towards Albert Bridge something approached, and my first thoughts were that it was a blue tit, as I've seen them hopping to and fro on the weeds. Instead, it was another Kingfisher, which landed just below me and proceeded to stare into the water.

It was raining quite heavily and a cold wind, aided by the intensity of my staring, forced tears from my eyes which made it difficult to watch, but I persevered for a few minutes until it upped and flew under the bridge. I crossed and looked down again until I spotted it. This time I was able to use my small, cheap binoculars to get a look straight at it. Unromantically, it squirted out a shot of white feces, then dropped briefly into the water. After it emerged empty-beaked, it headed off again, up towards Chethams.

I headed off to work.

Thanks to Steve C on flickr for this lovely shot of a male Reed Bunting, which was part of the dazzling array of talent on view at Pennington Flash.

Islands In The Stream.

Grey Wagtail, originally uploaded by nickpix2009.

Last week’s relentless and heavy downpours meant that the water levels in The Irwell rose quite dramatically. It also meant that many of the usual birds to be spotted, either in the river or on the bank, were taking shelter elsewhere. The Grey Wagtails which feed between Victoria Bridge and the Irwell Street Bridge came up with a novel way to ensure they got their fill. In the river, vast islands of debris, comprised of garden waste, twigs, furniture, and an inordinately large number of footballs, careered, Laputa-like towards the sea at great speed. As they passed, the wagtails would fly aboard, then rapidly bob around searching for insects, before disembarking further down the river.

Thanks to nickpix2009 on flickr for this picture of a grey wagtail.

Nostalgia.

Belle Vue 2, originally uploaded by mithering.

So, the second edition of Belle Vue finally rolls into town. I intended to review the sold-out first issue back when I finally managed to get my hands on one, but felt that it wasn’t fresh enough to cover as by then most of the print-run had sold out. The cynic in me also decided it was better to wait and see if they had the staying power to produce another issue. Which they have. Obviously. Good for them.

This time round, the cover features a view under the Castlefield railway arches, lovingly rendered by Neil Dimelow, who also provided the ‘view from Cornerhouse’ drawing on the front of the first issue. His finely rendered work looks like something produced by a slightly dope-addled Chris Ware. The magazine contains mostly illustrations, and one photograph. These work fine, but it’s not clear if there was any collaboration between the writers of the pieces and the illustrators.

The writers of this magazine consist of some people who I’ve known for a long-time, some people who I’ve known for a relatively short time, some total strangers, some people whose work I admire, some people whose work I dislike, and some people whose work just fails to engage me on any level. In the main, it’s well-written, and contains some interesting information and reminiscence, but there’s a huge problem with it. And it’s something that editor Joe addresses directly in his opening editorial; (so directly, in fact, that it’s as if his future-self wrote it as a warning message to an earlier incarnation, but past-self went and ignored it anyway), there’s too much nostalgia contained within.

Now, I’m as guilty as the next man for yanking the nostalgia chain. This blog contains several examples of it. But in this case, it is relentless, and it makes me wonder how the magazine would be received by an audience for whom the little details pored over in here are either exotica (I once put on a musician from Columbus, Ohio, who was thrilled to be driven through Prestwich, regarding it as some sort of northern Memphis, Tennessee) or just navel-gazing.

The real challenge for Belle Vue issue Three is not to come up with another dazzling cover, nor to maintain the already high-level quality of writing, it is to harness the talent evident in that writing and force it to look beyond the local history society and over-30s bar-room banter.

I’m already looking forward to it.

Belle Vue issue Two is available from Piccadilly Records on Oldham Street and Cornerhouse bookshop on the corner of Oxford Road and Whitworth Street West. Edit. I saw it on sale in The Britons' Protection this afternoon, so it may be available in other 'appropriate' hostelries.

She's A Rainbow.

Rainbow over Prestwich, Manchester, England 2., originally uploaded by mithering.

One of the main advantages of living in such a rainy region (it's not just Manchester, it's everywhere) should be a proliferation of rainbows. Unfortunately, there's never enough sunshine, or the view is blocked by buildings, buildings, buildings. However, having endured torrential rain coming across Saddleworth Moor on the M62 on Sunday, we were treated to this beauty just as we entered beautiful downtown Prestwich.

Jumped In A Puddle.

Wet Shoes Are Dangerous, originally uploaded by iChris.

Some things in life are crying out for the legitimacy of a Proper Noun. That terrible thing that happens when you are scurrying through town in the rain and you step on a loose paving-stone and it flips slightly up, sending a jet of water into your path and you boot it full on, getting a shoeful in the process. That should have a name. It would have saved me a lot of typing and you a lot of reading if I had just been able to say that I was hurrying to the bus stop tonight and I ****'d.

And while we're on about bus stops what about when you see the bus at the stop, and you think you don't have enough time to get to it before it pulls off so you saunter casually rather than running only to find the bus actually pulls off just as you get to it. And if you'd bothered to run...?