Tag: Clayhanger

July 8th – An enervating, hectic day from which I returned late. Tired, aching and verging on a sugar crash, I relented and stopped for a rest and a few sweets at the small meadow above the new pond at Clayhanger. I’d caught it in a lovely golden hour, and I reflected on how this spot had changed. When I was a kid, this hollow leading to a sunken pond with tree-lined banks was a spoil heap standing a good ten feet above my head. Between then and now, the colliery spoil was removed, the area landscaped and allowed to mature.

Not all change is for the worst.

July 6th – On an equally dull return commute, harassed by the threat of an oncoming deluge, I shot along the canal on the way home. Pausing only at the small patch of meadow – less than 100 square feet – at t eh top of the new pond at Clayhanger, I captured these midsummer soldiers: St. John’s Wort and the gorgeous thistle.

Come back sun, and make these soldiers shine!

June 30th – Looking almost frosted on the warmest day of the year, this is a cowslip seed head. It’s not quite ready yet, and is ripening in the sun beneath the trees by the Pier Street Bridge at the edge of Clayhanger Common. I have my eye on it and it’s fellow plants: as soon as they’re ready, I’ll take a few seed heads and scatter the seeds elsewhere.

You can’t have too many cowslips. Spread the love, people.

June 28th – Later in the day, I had to run into Aldridge on an errand. The flowers and trees are coming along well as the season ticks away; at Clayhanger, a pear tree I’d not noticed before looks set to deliver a healthy crop, but nowhere near as prodigious as the blackberries in Walsall Wood if the bees get to it and pollinate that wonderful showing of flowers. 

Again, at Clayhanger, a mystery yellow flower I really should know, but don’t; it looks almost prehistoric. Any help gratefully accepted…

June 17th – This is joyous.On the banks of the new pond at Clayhanger, what I believe to be northern marsh orchids growing in profusion. The grass is not cut here, and there must be 40 or so of these beautiful purple flowers. They are doing well, and they’re just gorgeous.

The whole bank running down from the towpath is a carpet of wildflowers, and alive with bugs and bees.

There are usually a few marsh orchids on the towpath up towards Aldridge, but the Canal and River Trust’s ferocious and inflexible mowing schedule means that all the best specimens have this year been shredded to pulp in the name of tidiness.

Let’s hope the mowing zealots don’t spot these…

June 3rd – I found myself riding home through Walsall Wood and on through Brownhills in a gorgeous golden hour. The coos of Jockey Meadows were waiting at the gate, and keen to investigate me as I stopped to take their picture. 

On the canal, the greens are still magnificent, and something about the light and water interacted and made the evening precious.

June 1st – It may have been the first day of the meteorological summer, but it was cold, wet and blustery. Again.

Cheering me up in the gloom, though: Clayhanger’s latest family: seven Canada goose goslings, clearly very recently hatched. When I spotted them, they were scrambling to hop out of the overflow they’d been paddling in.

Mum and dad were very attentive and impressive parents, it has to be said.

May 29th – I don’t know why, but I find these oak galls a bit horrible. They are distorted leaf buds, into which a wasp injects it’s egg and a chemical which causes the tree to grown the gall instead of a leaf stalk. The larva lives within the growth, feasting on it. When mature, the wasp eats it’s way out and the life cycle continues.

This tree on Clayhanger Common is peppered with these tumour-like galls – they look like fruit. The gall doesn’t harm the tree particularly, but it’s a very visible parasite.

there are many different types of gall wasp, all with different methods and growths. I’ve not seen this one before, and am unsure what it is specifically.

Nature can be very odd sometimes.