Look who's back! Swan boats make a spring splash at Walsall Arboretum

The pedalos, shaped as, you guessed it, swans are back out in force at the Arboretum's lake to signal the up turn in weather.

This is just the second year that the boats have been back in use after a two-decade-plus lay-off.

The boats were brought back to a huge fanfare last year and look here to stay as they were set afloat by popular demand again this year.

Mark Holden, the head of clean and green services at Walsall Council, said the boats would give visitors to the Arboretum a 'bird's eye view' of Wildlife on the lake.

He said: "The return of the pedalo service offers visitors to the borough's much-loved Arboretum a chance to get a bird's eye view of the surrounding wildlife on Hatherton Lake for the whole family."

The boats returned to Hatherton Lake last year just as the boathouse at the Arboretum was restored as part of a £7.9 million revamp.

As part of the redevelopment, old illuminations scaffolding was removed from around the edges of the water and a pontoon installed in front of the boathouse.

Part of the lake has been cordoned off to prevent the boats causing any disturbance to nesting birds. This has also created an undisturbed area for wildfowl.

Boating and fishing in the summer and ice skating in the winter first took place at the lake around 1835.

But boating was scrapped at the Arboretum after the death of a teenager in the mid-1990s.

In 1996 15-year-old Surinder Singh Somal, from Birmingham, suffered heart failure after falling into the icy water when the boat he was in flipped over.