Tag: beautiful

June 25th – I wasn’t expecting much when I headed to Chasewater; battling a strong wind and drizzle, the place was all but deserted and my circuit of the lake looked set to be dismal.

However, I was to be proven wrong; first of all I spotted a group of three red deer browsing the north heath contentedly, and they were happy for me to take pictures, even seeming to pose. But the real treat was waiting on the brow of the hill.

There was an adult female plucking greens from the trees, and after stopping to photograph her too, I noted she had another adult and two fawns with her. They progressed down to the marsh and loosely joined with the earlier three.

The antics of the fawns – never still for a moment – were lovely and the deer weren’t a bit shy or skittish. I watched them for a long time, even thought the rain was pretty steady.

However used to these gentle, beautiful beasts I become, I still can’t remove myself from the shock that we have them here, living on our green spaces. A wonderful, beautiful spectacle.

June 23rd – Always nice to see the bindweed in flower. Another plant ignored as a weed of the fringes and wastelands, this prolific member of the Convolvulus family has beautiful flowers if you take a closer look, and very nearly pure white too.

It’s common from mid summer until autumn, supports a whole range of bugs and Lepidoptera and is one of those plants our hedgerows would be very much duller without.

June 20th – A day of errands in the Black Country and plenty of riding the canals, green and limpid as they always are in summer, and alive with life, from the Wednesbury mother and foal to the bugs in the cowparsley. 

The pink flowers are stunning and I spotted them on the way home in Harden, just on the canal bank there. Does anyone know what they are? they’re absolutely gorgeous.

June 16th – This poor, out of focus photo shows something I was very surprised and quite lucky to find – a lapwing chick.

There were two of these long-leeged wee birds in the middle of Bullmoor Lane, and my approach scattered them into the margins of the road. The shrieking above alerted me to the presence of the parents, and after a quick phot, I left well alone.

These curious, ground-nesting birds will be fine and it’s hard to believe these lanky, spotty wee balls of fluff grow into the elegant, wheeling aerial acrobats that their parents are.

A treat on a warm summer afternoon.

June 15th As I cycled home up the Scarborough Road in Pleck, I noticed some banners on the railings of the Abu Bakr Islamic School on the old Edward Shelley School site.

Pupils and staff had taken time to make signs thanking firefighters involved in the terrible Grenfell House disaster in London.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this school observe support for victims of tragedy: they had banners in support of the victims of the terrible French terror attacks of 2016.

It’s so nice to see this. It made me stop, and think and that’s no bad thing. My compliments to those who undertook this small but significant act of solidarity with those who do their best to protect and save us all from peril, and great risk to their own safety.

June 15th – I heard about the local poppy field on Facebook, and it being very sunny and early, I took a detour on the way to work to check it out.

The field is just on the east of the Chester Road before the Wood Lane junction and is glorious. A few snatched pictures don’t do this gem justice. I will revisit it soon.

I love to see the poppy fields at this time of year, and welcome their rise since the drop in farming use of herbicides that used to kill them.I also adore the randomnesss of the places they appear – never the same two years running.

A beautiful and ephemeral thing – get out and see it while it lasts.

June 14th – I notice that on the embankment on the north side of the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood, the vipers bugloss is flowering again. In 2014, this was very prolific, in full bloom for about 20-30 metres, but now is sadly confined to just the one clump.

A beautiful flower though, and one I’ve not seen anywhere else locally. 

June 12th – One of the stars of high summer is the humble blackberry bramble flower. Never less than ragged, these fragile, prolific blooms are very common and seldom studied – but they’re a haven for bees and bugs, and add a lovely texture to wastelands, thickets and hedgerows.

And later, hopefully a huge crop of luscious dark fruit, just right for pies and crumbles, not no mention wine!

June 9th – It’s the season of poppies, and there are some beautiful examples in the hedgerows, edge lands and waysides locally. I prefer these little clubs in forgotten, neglected spaces. Ragged, at various stages of maturing and going over, these to me are real poppies; dramatic, beautiful, natural, and naturally flawed.

I even love the alien-looking buds, almost prehistoric in their furry splendour.

I spotted these in the sandy embankment just by Shire Oak Quarry on my return to Brownhills.

A true hero of the hedgerow, and a worthy and apposite symbol of Remembrance.

June 7th –  A lovely, chance find whilst riding through Victoria Park, Darlaston. Part of this urban oasis, right in the centre of Darlaston, has been left to wild and apparently spread with wildflower seeds. Just as I rode past it, I spotted a small purple flower that demanded closer study. I wasn’t disappointed.

A lovely orchid growing right there. What a glorious, pretty and wonderful thing!

So good to see after so many years of these important flowers being so rare…