365daysofbiking – Page 152 – BrownhillsBob's #365daysofbiking

April 27th – A mystery finally solved. I first noticed this patch of what appear to be yellow dead nettles in Footherly Lane a few years ago. Every spring they return, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen them anywhere else.

This eye-catching yellow display is absolutely gorgeous and fascinated me for the delicate colour and intricacy of the flowers.

After asking online, it turns out the plant is Yellow Archangel or Lamiastrum galeobdolon and indeed is of the same family as the dead nettle, and a staple of our ancient woodlands.

What on earth did we do before being able to use the collective hive mind of the internet for plant identification?

April 27th – I had to pop into Lichfield on my way home, and took the opportunity to nip to Waitrose for a bit of posh shopping.

In the fields surrounding the bypass and store, to the south of the Darwin Park estate, the fields are full of healthy, plump spring lambs and their mothers.

On a dull Friday afternoon they made for a lovely sight.

April 27th – Spotted passing through Telford, a concrete pump unfolding and deploying for use.

Fascinating and very clever items of plant. The gentleness, care and grace of the operator has to be complimented.

(Source: https://player.vimeo.com/)

April 26th – Clayhanger Common,early morning, not long after dawn.

Yellow army I surreptitiously helped establish here is massing around the grassland. Standing proud, in defiance of the land’s former history as a rubbish tip.

These flowers are a symbol of great progress, undercover as bright yellow, beautiful spring sentries.

May their invasion recur every year without resistance being encountered.

April 25th – The weather is still quite intemperate, but improving. Temperatures climbed at the weekend, then sank again, but on the whole it’s been a drier week – but windier – although the sun too has been welcome.

This improvement has meant trees are now well into the greening phase and it’s starting to look like summer is coming.

With blue skies and emerald embankments and hedgerows, the canal is looking gorgeous again.

It’s a pleasure to see.

April 25th – One of the sadnesses of the season is how short lived the blossom is – it’s there, and gone in a blaze of colour, then shed petals and confetti, then… nothing. A more transient example of the season’s wheel you could not find.

At the moment, the blossom is just starting to end, but passing these two intertwined trees on the cycleway to Priorslee in Telford always fascinates me as it looks like one tree with two different colours of blossom.

I love how, even when fresh, the pink one looks like bright but tattered tissue paper.

Such a lovely, but all to quickly passing, time of year…

April 24th – Pink blossom, just after dawn on the day a town mourns a young life lost way too soon.

Sometimes, nothing more needs to be said.

Rest in peace, little one.

April 23rd – Later that same day, a visit to Telford saw me hauling up the cycleway to Priorslee. A few short weeks ago this view was barren and grey.

Once more this byway is turning into a beautiful tunnel of verdant green.

I love how spring and summer can make even the most dystopian of places beautiful.

April 23rd – Spotted on the canal near Bentley Bridge, what I though was beech leaves in emerald perfection are actually hornbeam I believe (Thanks to reader John for the tipoff).

Either way, their fresh-sprouted perfection is immaculate and beautiful.

April 22nd – An odd sight in spring is always the first wind-seeding wildflowers, in this case I’m not sure what it is, possibly hawkweed. It seems almost incongruous to see seed heads at this time of year, but most flowers who seed this way do so throughout the season.

Such beautiful, silky fluff on this one.