Tag: Chasewater

December 21st – From here, it’s going to be OK. Everything will work out, and the battle of the last few months has finally been won.

From 5:11pm this evening, the darkness has been overcome, and every day from now on the daylight will lengthen in a sinusoidal patten until midsummer.

Today was the solstice, and from this point forward, imperceptibly at first, the days will lengthen and open out. There will still be dark, cold days to come, but the madness of the closing-in days has passed. My depression that deepens with the clock change in October will now lift. 

From here, Christmas, then a new year. A couple of cold dark months, then spring. The budding, the flowering, the warmth. The season’s mechanism continues, slowly, inexorably, and I am in it’s thrall.

Every year, I feel this so much more keenly. I need to feel it, to feel the good days. But oh, the blessed absence of light…

Chasewater was choppy, and grey. The fine sunset I’d hoped to catch didn’t come. But it didn’t matter. Darkness must now retreat. Begone.

December 7th – The distraction was a murmuration of Starlings. They were hypnotic, and none of my images were properly in focus or did it justice. 

I’ve heard there have been such murmurations here for a couple of weeks. What happens is starlings flock together in large, mesmeric formations. These started as two groups, and merged atop the electricity pylon by Jeffrey’s Swag. Up there, they rested a while, then gradually took flight in a tight pack, swirling like a maelstrom. For 25 minutes or so they circled the Swag, taking sharp spirals, about turns, each time they came close the sound of their wingbeats disturbed the quiet. Eventually, they spotted a place they liked and descended into the poolside scrub to roost.

I’ve only ever seen this a few times in my life, and never so close. The noise, the Moire visuals as they banked, the sheer bird count were all astounding, as was the manner of their disappearance into the roost.

Glad I was out to see that.

December 1st – First of all, my apologies. On my main blog I advertised the Chasewater Christmas Fayre for the day heavily; the press release from Staffordshire Council read well, and it looked to be a great event. When I turned up for a look around at midday, it was dire. 5 stalls, one of which was promoting the Forest of Mercia did not a great Christmas event make. My apologies to anyone who attended after reading my advert – I do try to promote decent events. I shall be more careful in future.

Disappointed by the Fayre, and still suffering with a stomach bug, I set out around Chasewater on a pleasantly sunny winter day. The North Heath looked pleasingly dramatic in it’s winter jacket, but sadly, no sign of the deer. Returning, I headed back over the Common and noted some management works in progress, which was good to see.

A pleasant ride, and I would have been out longer but my energy just wasn’t there.

November 23rd – I hit Chasewater for the sunset, which looked to be pretty decent, but sadly, wasn’t as great as I’d hoped. The light was good though, the park pretty much deserted. The gull roost – despite the last few boats only just leaving the water – was absolutely huge, with what must have been thousands of birds bobbing on the lake. I even saw an angler – the first I’ve seen on the main body of water since the reservoir refilled. It’s still a wonderful place to be, more so now the park has recovered.

The street light through that footbridge still fascinates me. It’s like a portal.

November 16th – I went up to Chasewater just to spin around the park. I haven’t done that for ages, but in the shorter, colder days of winter I’ll return to it more and more. Although it’s nice to see the lake busy in summer, like Cannock Chase, the magic comes when it’s deserted and few venture out. Apart from the odd dog walker and twitchers there to catch the Great Northern Diver that had been exciting local birders all week, I saw few folk, and as dark fell, I felt the familiar haunting feeling I get here… A mixture of enjoyment, desolation and sense of smallness in the great dark.

The lake seems to hover these days about a foot off full, and is functioning normally, with Fly Creek flowing well to keep it topped up. As I folded back over the causeway, the last bit of the sunset over Norton and Jeffrey’s Swag was quite nice, and in the dark from the Balcony Shore, it seemed the resurgent Water Sports Centre was getting ready for a party.

One of the few joys of the off season is returning to old haunts.

October 27th – The fungus, on the whole, is great this year, but the fly agaric remain elusive. My usual best spots for finding this most fairytale of toadstools – up on the canal behind the Terrace at Newtown, on the common opposite Birch Coppice and at Chasewater just by the bypass have all shown poor examples this season. These few decent ones were spotted on the canal bank at Anglesey Basin.

The puffballs – a fine crop – were all growing near Fly Pool on the North Heath at Chasewater. In a few weeks that green gunk inside will be dry, powdery spores, and the fungus will pop open on contact and scatter them on the wind.

The mystery large toadstool was on the canal embankment near Lichfield Road. I have no idea what it was, but it was very large and alive with bugs. 

October 20th – Also up on Chasewater Dam, I spotted the crack in the render of the back wall of the dam cottage. It’s obviously been there a while, and someone is monitoring it – that white plate, glued across the fracture with resin, was put there to gauge if the crack was growing. The plate has indeed fractured, and a portion is now missing.

I guess it’s a remnant of the dam works here. I never noticed it before.