Tag: Black Cock

September 13th – If you didn’t get a copy of last week’s Walsall Advertiser and live in Walsall Wood, it seems to have been dumped under the pedestrian walkway next to the Black Cock bridge.

About 30 copies, clearly dumped to avoid the work of actually delivering them.

Clearly not the sharpest tool in the box, because if they’d been dumped in a recycling bin instead nobody would have been the wiser.

August 6th – Another fruit of the season, but this time doing well, are honeysuckle berries. Sticky, poisonous and sugary they would upset human digestion but not that of the local birds, who will strip the shrubs on the south side of the Black Cock Bridge clear of berries as soon as they’re ripe.

Their sticky coating leads to them acquiring a patina of dust and road film, and I often wonder what effect that has on the wildlife that dines upon it.

June 22nd – Another impressive showing this year is the honeysuckle, or woodbine on the south side of the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood. A veritable carpet of pink-yellow blooms, it’s alive with bugs and bees and smells gorgeous.

I love the slightly prehistoric, otherworldly appearance of the flowers, too.

June 10th – A little further on, on the south side of the Black Cock Bridge, one of my favourite local bits of wilding is coming into flower – the huge, rambling honeysuckle growing from the paddock up the bank to the railings.

As usual, it’s divine, and bigger than the year before.

This is a beautiful spot and the shrub itself is charming and smells delightful. A real sign of a nascent summer.

May 29th – A quick run through Walsall Wood on the cut on a wet morning rewarded me with all kinds of life in the dripping wet green. The swan family from the Watermead were near Clayhanger Bridge and had obviously gone past their nap-time. Shame about the litter, sadly left where people were fishing the day before.

If people bring stuff with them, is it really so hard to take it back home?

The Canada Geese goslings are also growing well, and were closer to The Black Cock bridge – but in-between, a stripy fellow was being nonchalant and pretending he’d not seen me.

Life teams this time of year, rain or shine.

May 20th – I’m intrigued by these deep yellow poppies, which seem very, very early and somewhat unusual. They’re growing in dense undergrowth near the Black Cock Bridge in Walsall Wood, and were so bright they caught my eye as I rode past.

Are they indigenous, or garden escapees? Whatever they are, they’re beautiful.

February 2nd – Not noticing I had the camera on a poor setting, I took several photos today that came out really, really badly. By the time I realised, I was on the way home, and my hands were cold, and I was tired. But Bullings Heath – the area around the Black Cock Pub and bridge, at the north end of Hall Lane, Walsall Wood, looked great in the dusk.

It’s worth pointing out that tonight, it still wasn’t properly dark at gone 5:30. I’ll have me some more of that if I can – but it was a horrid cold evening, the kind that makes your forehead hurt and finds every sensitive part of your teeth.

I wish it would either get really cold and snow, or warm up a bit. This current cold and damp is the worst of both worlds.

November 13th – A miserable, headache-coloured commute to work found me at work on a rush job until very late; I returned on wet tarmac in light drizzle through somnambulant suburbs. I was exhausted.

Green lane felt desolate, and matched what I felt, and by the time I got to the top of the Black Cock Bridge, I barely had the energy to push on into Brownhills.

I love cycling late at night, but I did this run very much on autopilot…

November 5th – Bonfire night, and by chance I passed the Black Cock pub when their bonfire was well underway. I’ve never tried photographing a bonfire before, and these were handheld shots. It was an impressive burn-up and I was quite pleased with the results.

I’m not really into fireworks, but a bonfire always warms the soul as well as the skin.