August 28th – For some reason today, my photos were all really rubbish and these are the best of a rum lot, so my apologies. These yellow flowers are dotting the hedges and canal banks at the moment. Colloquially called ‘butter and egg’ they are common toadflax, often mistaken for snapdragons (which I did, last year). They’re a lovely, dainty little flower and make a change from the predominantly dark tones of most of the flowers around at this time of year.
August 19th – The oaks are faring better this year for acorns. Last year, the crop here by the canal at Clayhanger, and over on Brownhills Common, was ravaged by knopper galls, which turn the oak fruit into odd-shaped aberrations that are home to the larvae of a tiny wasp. Thankfully, I could only see a handful of such curiously distorted acorns on this tree, which had a healthy looking crop of normal fruit maturing nicely.
What the tree was suffering, though, is unknown but fascinating. Leaves had inverted, and the undersides were covered with an annular ring, clearly left by fungi or some insect or other. They look like tiny breakfast cereal pieces, but are obviously killing the foliage.
Do any passing arborialists know what they are, please?
August 19th – Thanks to friend of the blog Rosa Maria Burnell, I can reveal that Brownhills has developed a second pop-up bench. Again, secondhand, it’s appeared at the junction between Silver Street and the Miner Island. It’s not a picturesque spot, but Rose reports it was being well-used.
I have nothing against such street furniture, but I’m curious as to who’s erecting them, from where, and why.
August 17th – A spin through a damp Brownhills wasn’t feeling terribly picturesque, but as I sped down the cycle route that follows the old railway line from the canal to Engine Lane, I noticed how green and lush the vegetation was, how perfect the track, the light.
Even dull days can be beautiful in their own way.
August 17th – In the way that sometimes things just happen in Brownhills without notice, rhyme or reason, a bench has appeared at the top of Pier Street in Brownhills. There is no logic to the positioning, and indeed, it’s quite awkward. Nobody would want to sit here, facing the side of a shop.
The bench is tatty and has clearly been transplanted from elsewhere. But where? And why? By whom? What on earth were they thinking?
August 10th – The harvest was underway everywhere I looked – out at Hammerwich, Stonnall, The slopes of Longon and the plains of Staffordshire. Everywhere I looked, there were plumes of grain dust rising in the distant fields like palls of smoke. At Home Farm, Sandhills, baling of the straw was ongoing. The parsnips in the field behind still look lush, and the oilseed rape is still not ripe, but the wheat, plump and healthy, is now stubble. And so the cycle continues.
August 9th – Some months ago there was a brouhaha locally about plans to manage this section of Brownhills Common by removing the conifers, which are not natural here and are damaging the biodiversity of the heath.
Many locals didn’t see what the problem was. Here its is, this afternoon, in a nutshell.
Here we have open heather heath, host to a myriad of insects, small mammals, and passing deer. The heather, grasses and small, deciduous saplings are being choked by fast-growing spruce.
What chance does that oak sapling stand against the larger conifer shading it? If left unchecked, how diverse will this spot be in five years?
This is why management is necessary. Because if we’re not careful, the heath here will be lost, together with all the species it contains.
August 9th – Cycling around the common around the location of the now long-gone Brownhills West railway station, for the first time in weeks.
What can I say, but ‘Challenge accepted!’
I held it, but only just.
August 9th – I was pleased to note that someone has taken it upon themselves to paint and restore the old milepost at the top of the Black Path on the Watling Street in Brownhills. The sign, which is quite old, has been broken the way it is for as long as I can remember, but it’s nice to see it white with the remaining test picked out in black. I have no idea why it was erected here, or who by; it’s not in the common local style. I’m also curious as to why it says ‘Rugeley’ at the base, a detail I’d never previously noticed.
It would be nice if it could be restored to it’s original condition. I wonder what the blank arm said?
August 8th – I’m intrigued by one of the less publicised additions to the skyline of Brownhills brought about by the refurbishment of Humphries House, Brownhills’ tallest building. I noted some time ago the addition of what I thought were winches for access cradles, mounted on the roof above the major vertexes of the block. It turns out that they aren’t winches or hoists at all, but Domehawk CCTV cameras. I owner who monitors them, how far their field of view reaches and under whose auspices they’re installed?
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