October 19th – A puzzle. I found this flower growing from the brickwork at the canal edge in Walsall. It’s clearly day-like, but not a daisy. But it’s delicate and very, very lovely.
My curiosity was piqued by the colour. In the soft autumnal sunlight it appeared to be a very, very light purple or pink. But I can’t actually tell for sure.
Any ideas?
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October 17th – One of the things that makes me happy in autumn is the parting of ways of that year’s cygnets and their parents. Gradually, as winter closes in, that year’s clutch are gradually pushed away by the parents who still keep a loose family group but won’t tolerate the young too close.
This gradual transition into adulthood is visible about now as you meet lone cygnets like this one, hustling for treats on the canal in walsall, a few hundred yards from its parents.
For once I had some corn and it ate like they always do, like tit had never had food before.
Soon, it’ll join the main local flocks and will spend a few years socialising before pairing off and the family cycle continuing.
Another successful year for the local swans.
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October 15th – Returning in the evening at the usual time is now crossing into the night: My commute now often starts in twilight and just about ends in darkness.
As I passed Catshill Junction on my way to the High Street on a sodden canal towpath, I just caught the last of the light.
Oh how I hate this gradual, inexorable slide into darkness.
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October 11th – Although technically the next day, it was still my working Friday when I rode back home in a soaking wet, somnambulant landscape in the small hours of the morning.
I didn’t;t trust the few cars that were about, speeding around, so stuck to the canal where the only things around were roosting waterfowl and the odd, dejected and bedraggled fox.
I was tired and mentally dead.
Ah well, it’s the weekend…
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October 11th – On the way to work on the canal Walsall Wood, I noticed something one doesn’t normally see until early spring: This floating root, probably disturbed by Canal and River Trust efforts to remove the floating algae, is a rhizome of the water lilies that are so profuse here.
This remnant of the summer plant generally sinks to the canal bottom during winter, and when the water warms in spring, it becomes buoyant, floats with other detritus and then takes root, and when rooted, will grow that season’s lilies.
It’s a curious mechanism that actually works very efficiently.
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October 8th – Despite a flurry of updates, the generally lauded night mode on the new iPhone is very impressive but to me, still somewhat harsh.
On one of my favourite night subjects – Clayhanger Bridge – the image is impressive for a phone, but I think a real camera generally does it better, even with this incompetent behind it.
Maybe I’m being harsh myself…
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October 6th – A favourite local view – from the canal over to the hills of Hammerwich is unexpectedly green right now. Well, green and yellow.
The slopes of Meerash to the old railway are bright green with fresh crop growth and are dusted with bright yellow. Clearly a flowering winter crop.
I wonder what it is? Must go check it out when I feel better. A fare treat to the eye, that one.
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October 5th – Heavy with a cold on a week when I could really have done without it, a run over to Burntwood on errands on a grey afternoon.
On the canal on the way to Chasewater, I spotted this handsome, very black puss taking the air on a back garden angling peg.
Regarding me with clear disdain, it only moved to glare at me, following which this patch of sleek blackness resumed its neighbourhood watch.
Clearly something of the night about this gorgeous, wonderfully aloof and cool cat.
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October 2nd – I was recovering after the hospital appointment, but fresh air called and I took a spin out in the afternoon, enjoying the sun for a circuit of Brownhills, Walsall Wood, Pelsall and Clayhanger.
Slow and leisurely, I wanted to see if I was up to riding. Thankfull I felt no ill effects.
At Clayhanger Bridge I met the Watermead family, all now large birds, having a communal preen by the canalside. They tolerated me, and only went for my ankles a couple of times.
Beautiful, adorable birds.
To my surprise, Mr. Miyagi the turtle was basking too, but slid back in the water before I had my camera. Didn’t expect to see him out so late, but always nice to see.
The fresh air improved my mood and it was nice to find my riding wasn’t impeded.
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September 28th – Out in the afternoon for an errand in Lichfield, and I noticed that the deer had trampled a gap in the hedge near Home Farm from the canal towpath at Catshill, again returning a good view of my favourite tree – the magnificent horse chestnut near the farmhouse.
Surprisingly, it has yet to become very autumnal.
However, a lone oddity in the foreground caught my attention: A solitary, large sunflower going at the field margin.
A truly wild specimen, it can only have got there via the mechanism of bird digestion.
What a fine serendipitous thing!
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